Mud sticker. Bicycling in faith mishaps.

     As much as I try to depend on God and as much as I try to remember both the verse for this year to move forth and the tunnel vision I had - I get stuck sometimes. We all do. I start this analogy with the fact that I'm not a baby Christian anymore. I've taken off and thrown away the training wheels. That said, on with the possible and/or necessary dangers of bicycling in faith; of growing in Christ.

     So, I'll be going along, bicycling through my day, through my walk, and something will happen. I'll stick my feet out, cartoon style, and come to that horrible grinding full out stop. You know the kind, right? And what happens? When you do that, you end up in the mud. There's always mud. It's no coincidence. So, you land (on your bottom... if you're fortunate), right smack in the middle of the messes you try to work through. Closer than God would have you be, if you're working with Him that is. If you're not then you need to face things, you need to see how difficult it is without Him. Either way, you get stuck. It happened to me this week. It's something I'm still trying to work through. I went inward again. I said no to things I shouldn't have. I tried to shut myself down. Now, and for the past couple of days, I've been trying to start up again. I can't. Hear me? I can't.

     You need momentum to start up again and we can't find that momentum ourselves. Not ever. We need God to get us back on track. We need Him to hold that bicycle seat and push, even if it's just for a moment.  That's not a weakness that works against us; it's one of those give it to God and let Him show His glory through this struggle kind of moment. It's a decision we have to make. A choice that determines where we put God in our lives. Is He on the outskirts, in an in case of emergency capacity, or can we truly put Him in the middle of every situation we come across? I am weak and He is strong. I do need Him. In everything. In every single way. There is strength in that. In knowing that His involvement comes with all of the things that make Him Him! I go to this verse up again and again because I need too.

2 Corinthians 12:9
"And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

--> I am weak in so many ways, but I know that God's been working in me. That I've been built up in some ways and that I've been chipped away in others. I'm being molded to His purposes. I'm a work in progress. I am clay. He is the Potter. He alone.

Jeremiah 18:2
"Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you."

--> God's really been hammering me about positions lately. About how to position ourselves to hear God's word. About how to position ourselves to change in Him. What better place is there to change than a potter's house? When we go into the Word ready to change in Him, then we can truly go forth in the ways we need to. We're the ones holding back. We stick out our feet and try to stay where we are. We're like a child who's trying so hard not to go somewhere that they claw at doorposts in an effort to stop moving. We do that. The question is why? It's one we have to answer individually. We have to look at ourselves, at the muck we pick up, and find the root causes.

Proverbs 2:21-22
"For the upright shall dwell in the land, And the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the land, And the treacherous shall be rooted out of it."

--> In the natural I'm treacherous. I'm horrible. To put it in simple faith terms, I'm a sinner. I still am one, but for the saving grace of God. We are in the process of being sifted. Finding the roots of our present struggles is painful, and so is having them pulled out of us, but God is a Healer. He constantly fills us up. He fills us up until there's an overflow. A constant overflow in the things of God. Wow. He is good.