In prayer and supplication..

Nothing, today. Listening to sermons when there are other things which need to be done.

He's so patient. Even trying to do well, I do wrong sometimes. Or, if not wrong, then not entirely right either.

Another day, another opportunity to do whatever can be done, as directed.

I just let physical stuff overcome progress, sometimes. Still praying to overcome as to surrender more completely, so to do. And I don't know how, so it's just prayer after prayer. Conversation after conversation.

Not wholly dejected, no--there's still the abiding peace and love. Just, I'm disappointed and frustrated with myself.

He has infinitely more patience with me than I do.

I want to be doing things. I want to be involved in so many facets of ministry. I want to enroll in another college and seek to acquire what the world deems necessary, so to acquire rank unto influence. I want to go and do. Or to just learn. I want to be doing things.

But, as with today, I did things. Listened to an eight hour series on salvation. And it was good.
But the whole time felt as though there was something else to do.

And I just ignored that inclination, in favor of doing what seemed right, to me.
Listening to sermons and reading the Bible.

Just feeling so remorseful, now. There are other things which I should've been doing, engaging.
And I let the physical fallout unto desire for recuperation overwhelm the urge to do what could be done.

I have a difficult time accepting healing, in other words. It's something which other people need and should receive, but there's some wonky mental block against receiving it on my own behalf (aside of in regard to death). Continuing to pray. Because that's something He can help me overcome, too.

By His stripes I am healed, and it's a terrible thought to believe that such a sacrifice would be denied because I know I don't deserve it. None of it was deserved, what He did for us all. We didn't deserve any of it, but He did it. For God so loved the world...

So, that blockade against receiving healing? Yeah, it's an inverted sort of pride and it has to go.
Because to refuse healing out of some conjecture along the lines of "I don't deserve to be healed--it's penance" or "I don't need it, I can manage"...? He paid penance for us all, already. He bore those stripes, by which we are healed.

How much better is it then, to refuse healing? ...compared to those who refuse salvation, because they don't deserve it? I was caught in that latter trap for two years, and it was only by the grace of God that it was evaded.

So, by his grace is healing available to those who will receive it.

During intercessory prayer tonight at one of the churches, I asked Him to either heal me or let me die. But that there was so much work to be done, if it be His will for me to do whatever can be done.

One of the girls, as the prayer began to shift, asked whose pain she was feeling. He has been masking the pain, because I don't know how to receive healing completely. I know that by His stripes I'm healed, but don't know how to surrender to His will as to ever receive. But...she prayed for me. They all did. And I thanked Him, amongst them.

Afterward, she told me she'd been instructed to lay hands on both sides of my head, praying. As so to breathe His breath of life.

She did.

I received. And my ears and jaw and teeth are burning, still. Not hurting. Burning. But not in a painful way.

It's just...it's weird. Because the pain became acute as though migraine, over course of Saturday, but wasn't enough to restrict necessities. And it remained most day, Sunday, until it went away after the final service, after testimony. And it's not been noticed the past couple days, except that there's been...lack of energy.

Eh, it's whatever it is. And I know part of it, but am not going to claim it. Healing, instead.

There are so many things I'm still struggling with, really. Trying to surrender more wholly...because some new area comes up, still, through prayer...some area which I didn't even realize I've been holding onto. The stuff with the physical is a big one.

I'm back and forth with it, a lot.

Yeah, I know I died. I know there have been a number of times under various types of duress when I've awoken from 'sleep' with a gasp for air--I assume that I'd stopped breathing, just given the way it goes. The last was after having a bout with accidentally poisoning myself to some extent, using clove oil extract as a numbing agent.

So, I've still been struggling with that...over how to even surrender it. Not that I had any idea how to surrender anything else, either. It's taken ongoing prayer and progressive correction. A little adjustment here, a little adjustment there, then...bam...something would just change everything, out of nowhere. Grace, best I can figure.

Something would come up to tempt, and I got to the point where I'd basically envision myself just holding my heart up to the Lord, asking Him to take it because I couldn't do anything with it. When jealousy tries to set in. Or anger. Or impatience. I still have to do that, although it's not as often now as it used to be. In Tampa, when all this type of surrender started, it seemed like it was only every couple minutes I'd have to hold something up to Him, asking Him to help my helplessness.

And, even on the way home tonight, praying about all this stuff...praying about how there was nothing I could do, that I didn't know what to do...just giving it up. A thought snuck up, trying to assert that "God helps those who help themselves."

Oh, that didn't go over well. For one, self-sufficiency is high treason--no matter what anyone ever tells themselves, it's only by the grace of God that they're even alive as to DO anything. And, after taking that into account, reconsidering that particular bit of old-school heresy was a short matter...
He helps those who are helpless. He helps those who are broken. He helps those who acknowledge His sovereignty.

The folks who help themselves generally tend to refuse to acknowledge God in any meaningful way, given that their own efforts are in a place of such high esteem as to make anything else seem secondary.

So, yeah. No.

I hate when crap tries to sneak stuff in as though it were truth, when I'm in the midst of struggling over something. I thank God for being able to tell, though...it's by grace, discernment of the Holy Spirit.

But some of the stuff is so tempting, sometimes. Self-pity used to be such a point of being. When it tries to sneak in, as it has attempted all day today, it takes more prayer and praise to overcome. ...because I don't always recognize it for what it is, initially, given that self-pity is something which used to consume so much time and energy. It's a more "familiar" foe, in other words, so I don't always realize as quickly that it's something which isn't welcome any longer.

The Lord has kept me safe, though.

Some far more nefarious things attempted to interject themselves, late in the day, today. But they're every bit as unwelcome as is self-pity. So, I'll stay safe as resting in the love of my Savior.

Just one bit of doing things by my own will, though...as with all the sermons today and studying, rather than either being on here doing stuff or doing whatever else was supposed to be the thing..
...one little bit of even kinda-sorta disobedience, and it opens the door for all sorts of attacks.

But Jesus knows me better than I know myself. So, he'll use today to the good--I've more clearly realized the need to surrender more wholly, in addition to realizing further need for repentance as having gone by my own will today...and being able to just be more open about things helps, too.
In addition to the other ways it's working on the whole to my good, to His glory.

One step at a time, is all.