like a low grade fever, it’s been there.

symptoms: listlessness, anxiety, fatigue

i start to do reflection, things i learned in 2018, and i stop.

i can’t look back. i can’t focus now. i can’t imagine the future.

a maddening version of “normal” has been forced upon me and i vacillate between despair and revolt.

like with a low grade fever, i am sick, but still fully functioning.

here’s the deal -

i am okay with tests, obstacles put in place by a sovereign, loving Father. these things can refine, sanctify, build up.

but what i am living doesn’t feel like a test to me. i’m not putting this off on Him.

these are man-made crises, results of pride and flesh and selfish ambition.

me first decisions and actions and words create storms. these storms have effects - people are caught in them, but God should not be blamed for them.

carrying the weight of your sin doesn’t make you a martyr. it makes you a sinner in need of a Saviour.

What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. - James 4:1-3

i am no longer calling sinner’s sin a “test”. i am no longer praying for perseverance; i am praying for repentance. as long as the heart is unchanged, i will be running for cover in a war i have no part in.

this is no test. this is an attack.