He fights for us AND(!!) with us

"Here is the good news: Jesus Christ will not let us be captive to false ideas. He is fighting for our minds!" (86)

This is exactly(!!!!!!!) what I've been needing to hear. Once again, I have succumb to willfully trying to hold onto truths about God so that I can stay faithful and obedient. Yet, I have unwillfully failed because for short moments in time I have decided to give into false ideas, leaving my view on God, the world, and myself skewed - and it's devastating.

I feel so incredibly frustrated with disobedience. I prayed for a chance to share Jesus with someone all week, as well as the boldness to do it. God was faithful, and I was not. A classmate, who I met on this lab day, and I did a lab together and talked about all sorts of things because it was a 4 hour lab. Eventually, he asked what I did do with all my time, since he realized I didn't have a job and I'm not pursuing grad school, therefore something must take my time. My response did not involve spending time serving a loving God.

I am discovering that I cannot to all to much without God controlling every single thing. In other words, I'm not clutch. When it comes down to it, I screw it up. And I'm defeated in it. Every morning, I get up and spend time with the Jealous God, but as the day progresses I move farther away. I'm requesting daily bread, but only feeding on it when I remember to. I literally feel like I am legitimately forgetting what to do, and so the how I can do it is irrelevant. Anyway, to conclude and draw this in: I am falling into false ideas that have led me into a rough patch the past week or so. And the worst part has been that I've felt so alone. I see others around me and they seem like they can stick to the truth. Whereas, my head knows the truth, my mouth speaks it, but my heart turns from it when it matters most.

For a prescription, I picture myself being a vampire (just go with it). You kill a vampire by brutally hammering a stake into it's heart. Man, I need Jesus to brutally hammer himself into my heart (and I need to practice discipline better, because I'm lacking in this area more than I thought). Throughout the past several days, I have bought into the false idea that Jesus can't really help with this. Yes, he loves me, wants to satisfy me, and forgives me by his grace. But, I have bought into the idea that Jesus is not CURRENTLY fighting for me, because I need to prove my faith through obedience and right thinking. I have fallen into a skewed reality (does this remind anyone of Leonardo's wife in "Inception"?), where one important, false idea can ruin you: the idea that I HAVE to do this one thing without Jesus.

Yet, there is good news. And with Darrell's helped, the Word of God is shown it to me: Jesus is fighting for our minds. With that, I hope I can once again begin to push back toward reality - and not do this alone.