LIFE'S LOST AND FOUND

hmm.
i can't think of a title!
and truthfully, i've been so distracted lately, that i haven't been able to think of anything worthy of writing, as well.
ever have those moments?...
"...yeah...nothing worthy to say."

that's been me - to some extent.
i've really been dealing with new levels of anxiety and stress, and i'm working through it all.

i wasn't able to sleep last night.
well, i slept from 9-1am.
I KNOW -- i went to bed at 9pm.
i completely freak myself out sometimes!
i got a text from a dear friend at 1am that woke me up:
"i have been fasting and praying for you and chad..."
it almost brought tears to my sleepy eyes....

and then i couldn't go back to sleep because OF ALL THINGS...anxiety overcame me.
completely.
i tossed and turned, had one HORRIFIC nightmare, and proceeded to get up around 3am-ish.

i feel really frustrated with myself.
my doubt.
my anxiety.
my lack of reconciliation with a Gospel of Peace.

how is it that i have not been able to fully apply Truth in my life, enough so, that i can sleep peacefully through a night. i shackle myself, while holding the Key.
yet i keep locking myself back in the chains of fear.
rampant fear. unexplained fear.

Lord, FREE ME from this...
it's clearly my weakness of all weaknesses.

i'm also weirdly struggling with finding true joy in gifts vs. the Giver.
He is obviously the giver of all good things....
good things for us to enjoy.
good things worthy of our desperate prayer, at times....
He answers sometimes by giving us what we want, yet....i find often that the gift transcends the Giver, who is quickly discarded in light of what i would now have.
a replacement of sorts.

this is such a disjointed post.
maybe i should delete it.

i think i wake up (that is, when i actually sleep) to a reality that becomes clearer with each new dawn that -- nothing this world can give me and nothing i can create on my own is ever really mine.

it's simply a translation of His love for me.
if i receive good gifts....they've been injected in my life b/c of His great love.
if i lose good gifts....His love stands just as strong. regardless.

gifts don't REPLACE or WITHHOLD love.....
so my wanting, having, or lacking has no bearing on His everlasting love for me....

Ps 42:8
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love and at night a song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life....

so with ALL of that in mind....
how does the gift still seem exceptionally more desirable than the Giver.
the Giver of all.

it's humiliating how shallow my faith really is.
if i BELIEVED it...i would live by it.
and if i DO believe it in my deepest soul....
then why am i up writing this in the early morning.

where, LORD, where is the disconnect.
why does anxiety reign on the throne of my heart.

Romans 8:6
To set your mind on the Spirit is peace and life...

Can human trials and continual peace CO-exist?
if so - how.

to what end exactly is God glorified by watching me constantly die -- being crushed by desires or irrational fears and accepting submission simply by a mental process of elimination....or as though i've drawn the shortest straw.

conversely, would i have joy inside the safety of my own personal control?
i would feel better taking matters in life into my own hands - to face my own destiny?

obviously not.
so then, Father, what is wrong with me?
where is the Peace that flows forever like a river...

i think, or so i'm led in my thoughts to ask:
"ultimately -- how badly do i want Your good?"

if in fact all things work together for my good -- why is that not my highest aim? goal? aspiration?
how do i always find myself in a place where my desires, fears, anxieties even contend with His good?

they cannot.
yet, they do.
Lord, forgive me.

application is always a deliberate act of your will.
left to our fallen senses -- we'd never instinctively apply any of the Word.
He even tells us -- it's not hope, if we can see what we hope in.
it's hope because we cannot see.
it's faith because we do not know.
it's trust because He does not lie.

to pray for anything so fiercely, as though your life depended on the receiving of the gift, would mean you desire something as though your life depended on it...
...and what on earth can possibly hang our life in the balance?

...nothing.
Romans 8: 37, 38
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

maybe therein lies the fault in my thought process.
i read this morning that in the Baptist Catechism, it states:

Q: What things are chiefly contained in the holy scriptures?
A: The holy scriptures chiefly contain what man out to believe concerning God.....

wow.
how many OTHER things have i attributed to God that aren't found in the Bible.
that He owes me?
that I deserve anything?
that I am worthy?
that life is fair?
that if He loved me, He'd....

the ONLY things we should attribute to Christ are what we can find in black and white in the Scriptures.
it initially seems confining, but....glorious.
otherworldly glorious....not always "MYWORLD" glorious.

He gives...
He takes away...
and though we take great joy in all the great gifts He gives....it never defines His ultimate love for me.
nor should His withholding ever detract from His great love, either.

my prayer is that i would DAILY learn to delight in His VAST love for me characterized by His son on the cross.
i'm such a failure at it....
and it grows more irritating to me all the time....
i am so disappointed in myself.

it's all so easy to think...to write...to say...
but i am thankful i even so much as think it....or desire it....though i have not attained the extent of it.

that alone is such a good gift from Him, because on my own, it's clear where my devices would lead me....