A Beautiful Battle

Before I get into the "meat", can I just show you some thing that make me happy?

This is a beautiful print that I saw at Starbucks.  I think it is so meaningful too, especially for my time here.  I asked if it was for sale, but it's not :(  I think I'm going to buy a canvas and attempt to recreate it.  Sorry it's sideways!

This picture just brings joy to my being :)  Little Christian Slattery (the son of the woman I'm working for in for my internship) playing video games with big 6'8" Stewart, a fellow Institute student.  The height difference can be distracting, but the look of determination on their face is the same.  

The view from my local Starbucks (what?!)

Heaven: Bible, journal, and coffee :)

More heaven: chocolate chip banana bread, more chocolate, and coffee (ok - i just love that mug :)  Sorry Chels, I bought another mug)

I'm learning what a Good Father and what a Good Teacher I serve.  He never fails to gently point out rough patches in my heart that need smoothing.  He's been pulling out all the stops recently: teaching me and speaking to me through people, conversations with friends, His Word, sermons, classes, everything.  His voice has never been more clear to me - maybe it's the altitude (sorry - totally a joke - is that heresy?).

Before I proceed, can I just say...I hate sin.  It is so annoying.  But sin is much more than just super annoying.  It has the power to produce grooves in our hearts that make the sin patterns so much easier to fall into the more that we do them.  Sin is a very ugly, and a very powerful thing.  I've realized (in the past year) how easy it is to fall into sin when I am not listening to the Lord.  I resound so passionately with Paul when he says,  

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

       So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25)

This is what I call "The Beautiful Battle".  Fighting the lure of sin and learning how to see the beauty of holiness is one of the hardest, yet most worth-while battles we can fight.  Believe me, I'm not sermonizing (or if I am, it's to myself!).  This is a very personal battle for me, one which I fight everyday.  Sometimes falling into the rut of sin seems so much easier, especially when I feel tired of fighting my flesh.  But my Savior continues to re-enforce me and give me strength to keep fighting.  

This battle became very real for me last year.  I kept falling into the same ruts of sin over and over again because I wasn't intentionally fighting or listening to the Lord.  This season of my life is a time of training.  A time when I, like a little toddler, am holding onto my Father's hand, and relying on him for the next step.  It's a continual choice I have to make to keep holding onto his hand and not wander off on my own.  Like the hymn says:

"Prone to wander, Lord I feel it!  Prone to leave the God I love!  Take my heart and seal it - seal it for thy courts above."

This is my Beautiful Battle.  A battle that I often feel too weak to fight.  But I praise God for beautiful Jesus who takes the sword and fights for me when I feel weak.