Fighting the battles of the mind

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Sometimes, it's hard to understand why God puts us in the circumstances He does. I'm going through a little bit of that battle these days. It's a real battle because on the one hand, the thing I think God wants me to do, and I'm trying to do, at best results in futility and that's on a good day. The other part of that battle comes in when I have to fight the battle of the flesh to not stray off the path I think I'm supposed to be on and that's sometimes even more difficult than the first thing. Proverbs 3:5 says to trust in the LORD and lean not on your own understanding and that's what I try to do. What proverbs doesn't say is that sometimes is a very difficult thing to do. The question of how we do this finds an answer in two things: first a Christian is to love the LORD their God with all their heart, all their mind, and all their strength. When we love God first, then it's easier to see why it's good to say no to what He doesn't want for us. Understanding God being our loving Father, who only wants what's best for us (not what's necessarily easy, by the way) helps us go through the things we don't understand. The other thing that works for me is a healthy FEAR of God. I've seen God move in my life and He frightens me. It's a reverntial fear, one that fears the chastisemnt that can com when we disobey Him. I'm in no mood to make that mistake again and it helps to look back and see what God has done in the past to help remember why we don't want to go through some of that discipline again. My fight is mostly in my mind and it's like a tug of war that wears me out sometimes. But I know, ultimately, that in the end, things will work out the way that God wants. And that's what I want, too....

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