What a Good Friday Morning...Indeed!

This morning, conflicting thoughts have flowed from my pen as I read God's Word.  Today, this weekend, we are celebrating what our Lord did for us by dying on the cross and raising from the dead so that we have a way to know Him and be with Him forever.  I believe this with all of my being and know that He is my Savior and I am His child .   I know God's Word to be true and He is worthy of my praise.  Then why these conflicting thoughts as I read His Word in Psalms 139 this morning?  I love the Psalms!  God has used them more times than I can count to comfort my soul and lift my spirit  in praise of His love and goodness for me.   I have prayed verses 23 & 24 many times and know that God is faithful to His words.  "Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 

I was reading this chapter  this morning as the reference for our weekly handout for The Faithful Weigh.  We are being reminded that God knows all about us, our comings and our goings, our thoughts and our actions.  Even who we were going to be before we were formed in our mothers womb.  I can not even question God's truth in these verses.  Then why, when I came to those last verses that I know so well, do I find myself struggling with these conflicting thoughts?  When I came to these familiar words, thinking in the realm of my eating habits, as I continue on this healthy-eating journey, I find that even though I believe God's truth in them in many areas and circumstances of my life, I must think  they do not apply to my thoughts and response when it comes to my eating.   This is a bit troubling to me because I love and know my God and stand on His truth as my foundation.  How can I block these very truths out of many of my thoughts and responses?  And then the next thought that "justifies" my actions?  This  is not a "new" journey for me.  God has blessed me with many years of walking with Him and it has been a few years now that I realized that my eating habits were a part of this walk with Him, too.  I know that as we battle with the sin nature within us.  I echo Paul's struggle in Romans 7:15 where he says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do."  This is where I am when a situation comes into my day that I just don't know what to do with.  It's filled with emotions and feelings that I can't seem to figured out.  There seems to be no action that I can take to "fix it" but I just can't stop thinking about it and mulling it over and over.  In those times, IF I was applying God's truth in the "prayer" in Psalms 23 & 24, I would be trusting God to already know my anxious thoughts, to show me any error in my thinking and walk with me through it in the way of righteousness.  However, this is what I look back and observe what I do, over and over again.  I evidently "forget" the truth on which I stand.  I mull over the conversations, the possible "fix it" remedies, the frustrations of my words not being heard, the actions of others, and on and on I go.  I realized that what I am doing is searching my OWN mind, therefore, my thoughts are formed by my sin nature.  Inside of these thoughts, I am seeing how I have been offended or hurt by this situation, as self always dominates our sinful ways.  As this process continues, I will try to find some way to make this situation turn out right, in my way of thinking.  While I am going through this internal turmoil, somewhere deep inside of me, my senses are heightened by a need to be pacified and I seek to find something to do just that.  Without another conscious thought, I reach for anything to give me that comfort of doing something that I don't have to think about it.  This, for me, is munching, grazing, chewing, sipping or even gobbling down food!  While in this state of "unconscious eating", you can bet that it is NOT a healthy choice!   Hence the conflict that I so clearly see this morning.  Not a conflict within God's Word, but within me!  Should not this prayer, that I know is God's truth and He has answered for me so many times, be my prayer  in these times as well?  Yesterday, as a matter of fact?  This is the question I ask myself today.  Am I truly taking all of God's Word as His "Pardon, Provision, Presence and Power" (TW) in my everyday life?  Or, am I choosing to believe some of these truths all of the time, some s half the time, yet, sometime forget them as if they never even existed?  My prayer today is,  "Father, I believe that You are my Savior, my Provision in all things.  That Your constant presence and mighty power are with me. Forgive me, Lord, for choosing not to believe Your words of truth that I have read in the Psalms when I come to circumstances in my day that cause me to run my own way instead of seeking Your way. Help me, Lord, to live each moment in Your presence and know that each thought is captured by YOU before I can even form it enough to respond to it. Oh Father, help me to quickly remember that You have done this so that I will not go on in my own way but that I will follow Your leading that  keeps me from following my sin nature.  "Oh God, I need Thee, every hour I need Thee, O bless me now my Savior, I come to Thee."  Amen. 

I come humbly to this remembrance of what Jesus did for me to save me from the sin that separated me from the glorious riches in Him.  Praise God that He is risen, indeed!  It is a good Friday, for He has reminded me of who He is!