Faithwalking is easy for CHUMPS

This week the Pastor Man opened up Nehemiah's life a little more by examining the distractions he faced.   He's building the wall and these guys, their names is incredibly old school and hard to pronounce so I leave them out, are trying to get him to stop building.  Distractions!  You face distractions, I face distractions.  It happens.  I actually get to live this out in my week.  Recently my hubby and I have felt God asking me to reexamine the focus of my area of service.  We've prayed and prayed and agree with God (that's always a good conclusion isn't it) my focus will change.  The decision hadn't even been made for 2 minutes when I heard all the arguments in my head on why I should stay on my current course.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!  Not to mention, this week is the craziest week of our month.  So I'm also hearing arguments like, "And you think you can handle that? You're a fool!"  Seriously, no lie.  It's brutal.  At times, it's everything I can do not to quit.  Anyone who tells you a life of faith is easy...IS A CHUMP!  That's right, I said it, a CHUMP! You would think I would struggle with thoughts like these...

"What am I supposed to do?"  "Where should I serve?"  "How involved should I be?"  

NO! Those are the questions I already have answers to.  The thoughts I have been wrestling with go more like this...

"It's going to require every ounce of me."  "It's going to be hard."  "I'm going to have to depend on You God, otherwise this won't get done." 

I know what God is asking of me.  I know He can get it done in me.  What I don't know is this, how many times am I going to let Him down?  How many times am I going to want to quit?  How many times am I going to fight thoughts of inadequacy?  I get tired just writing it down.  Those are the thoughts I wrestle with, and I know I'm not the only one.  You just aren't talking about your wrestling match.  I know God is big enough, but if I commit to this I'm committing 100%.  There is no halfway, there is no "I'll see how it goes".  I do it or I don't.

What's my point? My point is, serving God is typically HARD.  No one gets it easy.  The Bible is full of stories of guys and gals who decided to serve God and then got their lives messed up.  We shouldn't be focusing on how to keep the faith walk easy, we should be focusing on how to fight while we're on the faith walk.  I'll share my strategies with you if you don't mind.  It's not that I think you need them, I just need to write them down, because today I am going to have to fight on my faith walk and I need to refresh my memory.

1. Pray.  Don't pray some fancy, wordy prayer.  When I'm start wrestling with feelings of inadequacy and thoughts of quitting I just pray a simple seemingly wimpy prayer.  "God I need you.  I need you.  I can't do this by myself. I need you."  Make it your own prayer but make it simple and to the point.

2. Read your Bible.  Yes, it works.  Read Nehemiah, read Psalms, read Proverbs, read SOMETHING.  Get familiar with what God says about you.  

3. Finally, Pray some more.

Repeat this process as necessary.  Don't get stuck on, "I should be beyond this" "I shouldn't be struggling with this." That's pride and that's sin.  It will only delay the process.

Now, to go and live what I write.