Further consideration.

Nice bit of a moment of insight given, as to how atrocious certain actions and tendencies have been yet tending.

One step at a time. I just don't know what else to do, aside of to keep praying, keep reading the Bible, and keep trying..

Despite that so much of the time so many things are still so...poorly done. And it's not thinking that there's a need for works, given that man's righteousness is no better than filthy rags. Just...

...there are so many things, as to the compulsion to improve. It's a living "thing" which won't rest. And the worse I mess up, the more painful it is to become aware of, and the more inclined not to continue to so err. Although...there are definitely some major points of struggle.

Funny how just one little thing can prove to be such a chip in the armor. Seriously.

It's been two and a half days without cigarettes again, now, and there are still so many things which have been blasting from all sides. Primarily food cravings, of course. Giving into a habit such as smoking is a lust of the flesh, as it goes...and, as experience has proven, over twice relapsing within the past three months...

...giving into one, of that sort, makes it the more difficult to withstand temptations of the same manner. Food, these past few days. This past week.

Which...is one of the things which made it more apparent the smoking had to go.

Fasting is too much a necessity for ardent pursuit of the Lord, as an easily self-directed and controlled and externally unmitigable devotion even unto self-denial.

It seems to be one of the few ways in which there's an active, ongoing sense of physical self-denial which is so overt and so personal as to require spiritual strength in order to succeed. Period.
Like, even skipping one meal a day...or leaving a meal "unsatiated", always...or howsoever...it requires consciously overriding physical impulses. Which, in order to maintain with any stamina, requires something beyond physical/mental determination.

Subverting self, is what it's always seemed.

And for the past two weeks, fasting has been just next to impossible. While, simultaneously, thoughts of laying down the cigarettes have increasingly abounded. To the extent that it had become an internal deliberation--sign enough of the necessity. Then, Thursday night, reading about the Righteousness and Sovereignty of God...reading about the Will of God...

...yeah, pretty sure smoking cigarettes isn't something necessary. And, if it's not Providential Will to be doing so, then it's permissive...and that's not strictly obedient. So, no.

There's something about the idea of quitting for the appearance of having quit which just bothers me, though. Seriously.

Like, this last go...having folks who wouldn't speak to me, before, open up while standing around smoking--being able to witness to them.

There's something of a sort of condescension which people perpetuate, often consciously, against folks who smoke cigarettes or cigars or any such...which is just utterly shameful. And I can say that, having been on both sides of it, now. Again.

For a moment, last time before time quitting, I'd gotten a bit snooty about it, too. Which--no wonder none of them would talk to me, eh? Just...that's very common. VERY.
Amongst the religious, especially.

I don't see that Jesus would have turned his nose up at someone smoking a cigarette, though. I don't see that He would've made any sort of mocking commentary about bad habits.

He wouldn't have gotten caught up on that, at least--especially given that He surely knows the darkest parts of everyone's hearts, and who's to say that those who smoke have hearts any darker than the rest of the unregenerate...or the regenerate?

It's like that for anything, though.

Hypocrisy is such a strange beast, is all, and the least little bit of it has a tendency to just infect completely.

I've definitely been a hypocrite on some accounts, and it's humiliating to have become aware. The smoking, for one--in regard to attitude of myself and others, regarding the habit...on the whole..
...in regard to interaction with folks, for another...and this, on numerous counts...even as in regard to writing about certain things, about certain interactions especially (because, seriously, perspective is always skewed)...
...if, the entire time certain interactions are playing out, I've got a secondary agenda waiting to play out regarding what I think needs to be accomplished, or said to accomplish understanding or growth for the person, or in regard to how better things had ought be, or in regard to slyly sounding out suspicions (as opposed to relying upon the Holy Spirit, exclusively, for discernment...for real)...

...if that's all going on, the entire time I'm interacting with someone--EVER, even if not all the time...if that is EVER the case--then OF COURSE there's going to be something off-kilter. Me. I'm being off-kilter.

I'm being hypocritical in my approach to interaction.
Period.

So, everything is going to be wonky.
Period.

And it's cropped up, before, and I'm praying to be freed from it, now.
Just...so long as lusts of the flesh, such as smoking and indulging in food (cake was NOT necessary), and whatsoever all else has been...so long as that's been open dialogue enacted, again, then all the rest has been trying to find place again, too.

When Paul admonished not to give place to the devil, he was for real. I'd just thought that...oh, one little thing which isn't a bit deal isn't going to make that big of a difference.

Wrong.

Smoking, despite all the madness which was initially stirred up upon beginning again--which, that should have been an indication. Rather than thinking all the many attacks were about doing something which was okay, but just which had some overtures of unacceptability, yet which surely didn't rule it out entirely? ...Yeah, no. That was a big no.

It was a sign I'd given the devil a foothold.

That first day smoking again, I was assaulted with all sorts of maudlin and disturbing and tempting thoughts--things which hadn't come anywhere near me for months. And I sat through the assault and prayed.

But, still smoked. And the assaults continued.

To the extent that some began to be given in to...as with the recent impairment upon fasting. Two weeks ago, that one. And it disturbed me, too. Knowing. Praying about fasting, then just failing to have the constitution...despite knowing necessity.

And then, other thoughts. And the dreams, these past couple weeks. All sorts of stuff. And my resistance has just become weaker and weaker.

Ah. You can't walk by the Spirit and in the spirit and yet walk in the flesh.

Corinthians?

It's just not possible.
Not Corinthians...Galatians. Galatians 5,
16But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

...there's just so much more to all of this than anyone ever even hinted at. Or, maybe they did talk about it, and I was just so far from comprehending that none of it stuck.

Still a bit confused about whether it's acceptable or good to reflect upon things, as such--in terms of "what was."

Like, I don't remember being able to connect any of the stuff I heard at church, growing up, with anything observed. Some of the stuff being read, now--I remember bits and pieces, lodged in memory. Just...I don't know. I don't know what there was, in me, that I never saw anything which made it make sense. I don't remember seeing anyone...except for the people at the Mission house, who weren't at the church...I don't remember seeing anyone who really embodied the stuff being taught in the churches.

And, it comes to mind about maybe there just being a blindness in regard to family. Which persists even totally, apparently...or perhaps. Something to the effect of being unable to know.

Just to pray.

So many things, though. Many, many things.

I'm just glad Paul warned about not giving place to the devil. It's helped figure out what's been going on, so much.

Just, with the way things seem and go in the churches I've always gone to...it's never really seemed as though there's a big deal made over certain sins. They're either talked about in obfuscating detail or with wholly obscuring generality--either way, just I don't remember anyone talking about how something as simple as giving into popcorn and a little debbie cake can open the door to hypocrisy, within 24 hours.

But it did. It does.

It can.
Results may differ, of course, but it seems as though the general course being true means that there'll be similarities across the board on many counts.

My mind is just so utterly decimated by the reality of how quickly and how terribly things deteriorated, within a couple of weeks of giving into just...what seemed like really small stuff, at the time. A can of soda, here. An ice cream sandwich, there. Next thing ya know, I'm reading the abominable advice columns in the newspaper--so very gossipy, yes, and full of blasphemous advice.
And, then, basically complaining and gossiping, myself...which is completely hypocritical. And, the "frustration" yielded and compounded by further and further slipping and sliding...rather than confessing, ended up further compounding into slight moodiness unto others. Absolutely terrible, y'all.

And all it takes is one little thing, rationalized as acceptable, rather than surrendered because of uncertainty.

Because...yeah, when you sit down and really start to dwell on who God is, on how He is, and what He's like... ...it gives a whole new respect/fear and resultant desire to stay completely on-target with His will.

To the extent that, if something is questionable...I'd rather err on the side of complying with His will, instead of erring on the side of potentially moving into the "permissive" realm.

Because it's all either a direct decree from Him or something He's allowing--everything which goes on, is this. And while He will work all things to the good for those who are called according to His purpose...I'd rather not knowingly or even questioningly put myself in the position where something chosen is not initially good, as in His direct will.

So many things. But, for now...apparently, sleep.