The nature of things

OK, I have a few minutes to myself so I thought I’d get a blog post written.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of sin. And the nature of love. And how the two go together. They always seem to be together. I’m talking here about my love for God. And my knowledge of His love for me. My love for God seemed to diminish for a while these last few months. I wasn’t on fire for Him. I didn’t think about Him all the time, I didn’t have the impulse to read my Bible. I couldn’t seem to find Him. I felt lost. I even wondered if He was even really there, or if I just wanted Him to be. Doubts, doubts.

Although I know from what I have learned that my identity is in Christ (I am who He made me to be, and Christ’s sacrifice has made me clean in God’s sight) I still compared myself to other people all the time. I have always done this to a certain degree but I reached new levels of neuroticism recently. I was constantly wondering what other people were thinking of me. I needed their approval. I was gutted when I didn’t think I received it. Other people’s opinions of me became far more important than God’s opinion of me.

A few weeks ago I started taking medication to try and control my anxiety. They took a while to kick in, and in fact I became more nervous for a while. However, during our week on holiday I was able to get some perspective. I felt my body physically relax. Towards the end of the week I was thinking more clearly. When I came back to work I was much less worried. And I started to think about how my sin pulls me away from loving God. Or how my lack of loving God leads me into sin. Which way round is it?

Red Wine Gums said recently that:

The problem when you don’t feel God in your life, when you don’t love him with all of your heart is that it’s impossible to truly hate sin.

So true. When I am feeling far away from God, that is when certain sins become acceptable to me. Like maybe having a bit too much to drink, or getting cross with somebody and moaning to Mr. Razzler about them behind their back. It just seems like it’s too much hard work to be fully committed to God. He doesn’t help me, I’m left to do this on my own, and it’s too hard. What does it matter if I don’t love this person the way I should, what does it matter if I was impatient at work today?

I got a lovely little mp3 player for my birthday. It’s great. So I spent some time walking by the river while we were away, listening to some great music. I felt calm flooding through me. I felt like I kept catching little glimpses of God. Little glimpses of who He wants me to become. But the doubts were (and are) still there. Did I really feel God or did I just think I felt him because of all the pretty trees and ducks and good music? Or because of the anti-depressants that I’m currently shoving down my throat every evening? After all, I am a very emotional person. How can a feelings-oriented person work out the difference between feelings and reality? How can I tell what is God and what is me?