Oh, Paul.

Paul, from the New Testament of the Bible is speaking the words of my soul right now. Well, he spoke them long ago but because God’s word is living, it might as well be as if he was speaking right to me, about me.

“A continuous, low-lying black cloud” is exactly what it feels like I live under much of the time. But Jesus. But Jesus says there is a new power in operation. That there is freedom from sin, from the wrong choices, from the lifetime of failure.

He goes on to say in verse 4 that instead of doubling our own efforts of will power, efforts in yourself, that we can simple embrace what He, what Jesus, is doing in us.

I know I am meant for more than what I am living right now. More than migraines and joint pain and headaches, and feeling exhausted. God wants us to have an abundant life. He is working that out in us, but we need to embrace it and join in, rather than fight against it, trying to use our own power! Less of self, more of Him!

Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

 It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

Excerpts from Romans 8:5-11

God’s spirit is in me, living, breathing, healing, restoring as much as I allow. It’s time to step out of the way and let God work. It’s time to stop giving it MY all and let Jesus DO it all.

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

Romans 8:12-14 MSG

I love the way this verse puts it – give the old life and old ways a decent burial and get on with the new life.

I write this with hope and also with despair. These verses give me hope. Even PAUL of the bible struggled with his own sin weaknesses and had to rely on God to get him through. I am normal. Sin grabs ahold of us in many different ways, but it grabs hold and doesn’t want to let go. We struggle and fight and intend to do better and often fail – though our sins maybe be different, the feelings we go through, our struggles to DO better are the same. And there is only one answer – Jesus. And that gives me hope.

But I still despair over whether I can hand over the reigns. How many times have I tried to get healthy? How many times have I BLOGGED about starting a new healthy chapter and failed? It’s embarrassing. Shameful. And what if I fail this time, too?

But Paul. This amazing man who wrote, through God’s spirit, much of the new testament…. he struggled too. He tried and he failed over and over again, also. But he kept getting up and giving it to God. And He was willing to blog, ahem, write about his struggles. He put it all out there in order for others to know they are not alone. To give answers to the heartfelt cry of “Is there no one who can help me?” For thousands of years later, to have a small time blogger read the words of hope in Jesus. To find the answer to overcoming sin. To get the courage to get up and try again.

So, I’ll share again, how I’m getting up again, and how God, through Paul, was able to encourage me this night and into the coming year. One day I will have victory. Now, to learn how to get more hands off – way less of me and much more of God in this journey!