Chapter 3 – Don’t Give Up

A Christian without victory. That’s what I am. I knew this. I’ve known it for a long time. I just didn’t have the proper terminology. Well, it’s not pretty, but there it is.

The Israelites were on a journey, an 11-day journey from their captivity to the Promised Land, and it took them 40 years to get there. I am a true Israelite. I was put on a journey, a momentous journey from sin to new life. One moment I was a tiny newborn babe and the next, I was washed by the waters of Holy Baptism and I was a child of the Most High. I’ll be 40 this year. Is that the magical number for when I finally accept that Jesus is enough and give the rest of it up? Or am I worse than even the Israelites. Will it take me longer?

And why fight so hard to keep a diseased mind? Why not give it over to God to “reprogram”? Because my old ways are so familiar. A well-beaten path. GIGO. Garbage In Garbage Out.

How many books will I have to read before I can finally transform. That’s what I was looking for. Well, I already have the answer … Just One. The Bible.

And I’m scared of what I’ll become on the other side. Will I be me anymore? I’ll be the real me I’m told. What would that look like?

How many of us are there? Christians without victory? I believe the number is simply enormous. Which makes it so hard to trust anyone … Are you like me? Out to make your own little kingdom? A kingdom of safety.

And a prison.

I argue with God a lot now. Why me? Where? What? How? And I just want to give up everything. I don’t want to care.

But the title says Don’t Give Up. And I’ll keep reading.

“The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, ‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain. See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.’”
Deuteronomy 1:6,8 (ESV)