break me, and heal the brokenness

This summer is supposed to be my summer of "self-discipline" which, when combined with my level of willpower and determination, becomes almost ironic. I am supposed to be at least through one book of the Old Testament by now, and yet I have barely made it past chapter one. I am supposed to be growing in Christ, and instead, I am seeking other things to keep me content. It's not supposed to be this way. It really isn't. I was reading a blog earlier and the girl was talking about how she wanted to fall more in love with God in her free time. She literally thinks about Him all the time. I can't say the same thing for myself. Usually I'm thinking about how to be "content" or "happy" in worldly things and how to get what I want. And if not that, I'm worrying about getting a job or how to fund my life because I'm in a liminal state in which I have been offered a job, but haven't started working yet due to circumstances out of my control.

And I worry. And I think about how I want my future spouse to walk into my life or how I want to run an awesome "handmade boutique" or how I want Publix to call me in and tell me that they're sending me to orientation this weekend. I think about how other people have desires and wants, too. Like in eat, pray, love-- the woman goes all the way across the world to "find herself"-- and then "true love" plays into the whole theme, and then there's a bunch of "sighs" and "awws" at the end because everything works out and yet-- I realize-- even if that was everything she thinks she wanted-- she'd still feel a giant void that even her medicene man (in his dire concern for her and with his utter sweetness) would not be able to help guide her to the source of her need.

Yes, this is a movie. Yes, I may look like a lunatic for using a movie to discuss the classic "desire for fullfillment/want for something more" in something that isn't real-- but it was striking during the movie, pointing to my own heart and my own longings. I know the answer for all of my longings. There is only one answer and that answer never changes. Day after day, I know it. It is God. It is the desire to have a right relationship with Him. It is the desire to be fulfilled by Him and to know Him. However, I can't tell you how many times in the day I don't care about this fact. I only care about what I want. And somehow, someway-- this has to change.

I was in church a few weeks ago and the pastor said that we need to stop trying to fix ourselves and let God fix us. It's like, we see our brokenness and we try to use our self-reliant skills to patch up our own spiritual potholes and scrapes and scratches. It was never meant to be this way. We can't possibly fix something that marred since the beginning of human history-- since the fall of man. And yet I find myself trying to do this, and failing. If only I could be closer and more devoted to God, I say.. and I begin sketching out a well-laid plan for this: I will read my Bible every day, I will do this, I will do that. Not saying that it's dumb to plan to spend time with God. Not at all. That is vital to spiritual growth. However, I'm realizing more and more that I have to trust God with my brokenness, trust Him in my brokenness, and accept grace in my utter and total inability to be anything like His son.


Romans 7: 14-29 "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.