Build up to break down...

Over the past week I have been training my body to get more sleep, and last night, when I only got maybe five hours, it was quite obvious. I woke up with dark rings under my eyes, was late for work, and almost didn't go to Greek class. The outcome? One hundred percent on my Greek homework and a roborant nap this evening. Out of our crazy lives God revives us and completes within us work that we ourselves cannot do without Him.

I have been letting my guard down lately, not watching for the ways evil slips under my armour, through the cracks that I do not allow God to patch up right away. I feel my resistance waning for those secret sins which are my thorn in the flesh. I don't think there has ever been a time where life has been easy for Christians, but God never said it would be. I feel like society wants to pull me down so easily, and I can be so allured by pop culture and the message of sexuality that it exudes. I am disgusted by the perversion that is all around me, and how it is so subtle in it's enchantment. It comes to us packaged with superficial beauty and allurement, yet when opened up reveals the spiritually deadened, evil, and lost souls of all of humanity. I am appalled with the complacency I have towards it and how my spirit becomes numb to the ever growing decay that infiltrates. I am ashamed with how much of it we let in, how much of it we allow ourselves to be exposed to, while at the same time expecting there to be no consequences. It is our souls we are playing with here, my friends, and our holiness that we trade in carelessly like Esau with his birthright. Pop culture and the cares of this world will not feed our souls and will not lead us closer to Christ, but will send us careening down a pathway that leads to destruction.

I have been so enamored with the monastic life, and how monks (and nuns) devote their lives to Christ, throwing off the cares of this world to become closer to God. Of course, even for them it is not easy, but they are constantly encouraged by one another and by our Lord, whom they spend so much time reading about and praying fervently to. "Be in the world, but not of it." I desire so much to read God's word constantly, and sometimes when I am at school, it's all I can do not to run home and open up my Bible and read for hours. But, the reality is that I don't actually run home. I don't actually soak in His Word like I wanted to, because I get so distracted by my computer, by eating, by the internet. My mind doesn't stop and

be still.

There always seems to be endless distractions and lovelier attractions.

On the other hand, I would never want to get so caught up in my own spiritual life that I forget to focus on sharing the Gospel of Christ with others. Yet, for the sake of saving myself from my fleshly desires and throwing all cares behind me, I would gladly pursue Christ and the holiness that he desires to cultivate within me.

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the gall.
²⁰ My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.
²¹ This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
²² Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
²³ They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
²⁴ “ The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,

“ Therefore I hope in Him!”
²⁵ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
²⁶ It is good that one should hope and wait quietly

For the salvation of the LORD.

-Lamentations 3:19-26

Love,

Ashleigh