Opposition

I hate coming down off the mountaintop. :/ I just finished my last EFY yesterday. After such a spiritual high, I came back down to earth pretty hard. Just like with Moses, I feel like Satan is getting at me with his fiery arrows of doubt and guilt as diligently as before. I am a good person, and he is flinging every shaft he has at me. I am very frustrated at earth life right now.

And still, how I complain about having such an incredible experience? I was utterly surrounded by the Spirit for five days. Gash, I just hate decisions. I don't trust my own judgment, which makes no sense since looking back on my life, I have made the right choices. I suffer from perfectionism. Perfectionism is exhausting. Perfectionism can never be quenched; it always sees the line of dirt from where a dustpan doesn't get everything.

My natural man is fighting with the spiritual side of me. How much easier it would be to go back to my old ways, to not change. How impossible it seems to change. I feel like I am back in Satan's territory. I just feel like every choice I make is the wrong one. My heart aches for the peace I felt, for how alive I felt spiritually. In short, the roller coaster of life, of progress, is seeming to have made a stomach-lurching drop.

And still I know it's not true. I know that I am daughter of God. As Daddy's girl, I have all of His divine attributes, however buried beneath the skin of my natural man. And I know that I cannot get to those attributes. I have known it my whole life, but still, I have tried to scrub off that skin. But just like Eustace in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I can't tear off the dragon hide myself. Only Christ can tear through that. Jeepers. I felt the Spirit so strongly when our session director testified of that. I still do. When the Spirit testified of it, it softened my heart. Instantly. Wow.

I didn't know that I was a daughter of God either, before EFY. It was a trite saying to me, with as much feeling as a repetitious prayer. As our conductor in the musical program testified that God is our Daddy, I felt it. The Spirit testified. I finally understood what I had been trying to learn all my life. I am so grateful.

And now, my greatest desire is to have the Spirit. I want it so much. And I cannot feel it when guilt takes over, or fear guides my decisions, or doubt destroys my faith. How I yearn for that Spirit in my world. Okay, that pain still is not eased, it seems. I have such a hard time with mental trials. I can handle physical pain fine. But mental pain is so hard for me.

And still I feel guilt for this post. It is not spiritually uplifting. It is a vent, plain. And still, this unwarranted guilt guides my actions, making me angrier and angrier that I can never seem to make the right decision.

But still, Satan, you know what? Hope shines through the smog. And there is nothing you can do about it. And through all your violent, harsh, dramatic, desperate attempts, God still wins. God always wins, in His peaceful, childlike, perfect, soft way. He always wins, Satan. There is nothing you can do about that. And today, right now, amidst your pathetic attempts, He wins again. :)