reminding myself.

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One month from today I depart for another chapter of my Great Adventure. 

ONE MONTH, PEOPLE!!

True to past experience, Satan has tried to wiggle his way into my thoughts, bringing up old temptations, and doing his best to incur doubt, fear, and the old “you-can’t-go-Kaytra, you-fail-in-everything-trick”. So yes, the battle is on, the battle is real, and I would appreciate prayer.

In one sense, I am okay at failing, because if dependence on God is the objective, then weakness is our advantage. {2 Cor. 12} The other part of me says, “fight, act, do!”

Imitating my Lord, performing as a daughter of the King, defending His name, being in the thick of it ~~ the soldier in me craves it. It craves it with the knowledge that it’s all Him, and none of me.

Pride comes easily when we are in a position to get the glory for what we do.

Which is laughable.

What do we do exactly? We sin. We fail. We strive endlessly to get pleasure, up our egos, be in the world and accepted by the world. Then we say “Bless me Lord, for I am worthy!”  Ugh. Pride. Abominable stuff that humans have in plenty. I wish it sickened me as often as I expressed it.

Paul’s sharing of his testimony to the Philippians always cuts me to the quick.

“Yet every advantage that I had gained I considered lost for Christ’s sake. Yes, and I look upon everything as loss compared with the overwhelming gain of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For his sake I did in actual fact suffer the loss of everything, but I considered it useless rubbish compared with being able to win Christ. For now my place is in him, and I am not dependent upon any of the self-achieved righteousness of the Law. God has given me that genuine righteousness which comes from faith in Christ. How changed are my ambitions! Now I long to know Christ and the power shown by his resurrection: now I long to share his sufferings, even to die as he died, so that I may perhaps attain as he did, the resurrection from the dead.”

~ Phil.3:8 ~

Yep, it still cuts sharply.

James, whom I feel most kindred to in struggles and personality, explains that even though we are to count our pursuits  as “dung”, we are still responsible to act upon what we have in Christ. We just have to do things with the correct view of God, man, and sin {which is another blogpost for another time}. J

Have done, then, with impurity and every other evil which touches the lives of others, and humbly accept the message that God has sown in your hearts, and which can save your souls. Don’t I beg you, only hear the message, but put it into practice; otherwise you are merely deluding yourselves. The man who simply hears and does nothing about it is like a man catching the reflection of his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, it is true, but he goes on with whatever he was doing without the slightest recollection of what sort of person he saw in the mirror. But the man who looks into the perfect mirror of God’s law, the law of liberty, and makes a habit of so doing, is not the man who sees and forgets. He puts that law into practice and he wins true happiness. 

~James 1:21-25 ~

Does praise for anything but Jesus make us cringe? Does applause for worldly aspirations and achievements bring sadness to our hearts? Does sin make us weep as it made the Man of Sorrows?

Do we see? O to see with perfect perspective at Perfection itself, seeing ourselves as the sin-full, Christ-dependent people we are! To count every success on my part as “dung.” 

To not just sit there listening, but say:

“Here I am Lord. Use me.

Whenever. Whatever. Whomever. Wherever.

By His grace. By His power. By His Spirit. There is no one like our God.

"Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
But to Your name give glory
Because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.
Why should the nations say,
“Where, now, is their God?”
But our God is in the heavens;
He does whatever He pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of man’s hands.
They have mouths, but they cannot speak;
They have eyes, but they cannot see;
They have ears, but they cannot hear;
They have noses, but they cannot smell;
They have hands, but they cannot feel;
They have feet, but they cannot walk;
They cannot make a sound with their throat.
Those who make them will become like them,
Everyone who trusts in them.

O Israel, trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield.
O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield.
You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield.
The Lord has been mindful of us; He will bless us;
He will bless the house of Israel;
He will bless the house of Aaron.
He will bless those who fear the Lord,
The small together with the great.
May the Lord give you increase,
You and your children.
May you be blessed of the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth.

The heavens are the heavens of the Lord,
But the earth He has given to the sons of men.
The dead do not praise the Lord,
Nor do any who go down into silence;
But as for us, we will bless the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
Praise the Lord!"

~ Psalm 115 ~

Blessings ~ Kaytra