God Can and God Will
He asks for an inch so He can give you the mile
Okay, I was not planning on writing or posting this for a while. I had a whole post that was meant for the Misrepresented series that would have been surrounded around this topic (it will still happen but this message cannot wait). God has been placing this message on my heart for the past few days and I could not wait to share any longer.
We all struggle with sin. We're humans, we are sinful. However, I just want to share a story about myself (...vulnerability) that has inspired this message. I am gonna be honest. I have been struggling with sin recently. I don't know that I am totally ready to talk about it fully and openly just yet, but for the sake of the story, I really don't need to. This story is about God, not about me.
Anyways, I have been struggling with sin as of recently, it's an extremely common sin, but I still want to try and break my bad habit. However, the flesh is so strong. I have felt so disntant from God and while I should be putting forth more of an effort into that relationship, it just hasn't been happening. I haven't been reading my Bible like I should be. I haven't been praying as often. The "fire for God" that should be constantly burning in my heart just isn't there. This, along with the sin I have been living in has been somewhat stressing me out. But the flesh is so much stronger than my soul is. It's not that I want to live in sin because I know it only leads to a path of destruction and pain. I just couldn't figure out how to stop.
I came across a Youtube video and it felt like it was made for me because it was addressing how it feels to lose your fire for God (and this is the link to the video). I watched it and the man broke it down into a few steps. Basically saying that God doesn't expect you to constantly be your full 110% for Him, because He knows how strong the flesh is. So, read your Bible for 5 minutes. Pray for a couple minutes. Watch a short sermon online. Just do something to refresh your soul, just try even the slightest bit.
I also heard that the best way to break a sin is to bring it to light (I don't think this was addressed in the video, as this relates to a different topic). Have someone to talk to and hold you accountable when you're failing. So, I briefly spoke to a friend about it and it helped a little. It definitely got me thinking about why this sin is so bad. However, I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop.
So, I continued in my sin, but I started trying to pray more often. No elaborate prayers, just simple ones. "God, let this day go well", "God, forgive me. I don't like my sin but I cannot stop, so please forgive me". That's it. Nothing long, no fanct words. Not even addressing the particular sin I was struggling with. All I did was send up a sentences to God. However, I started to notice that God was up to something.
I particularly struggled with this sin at night. I was tired and drained and it was much harder to hold myself to my goal. I find myself praying sometimes, "God, I am about to sin. I don't want to break your heart but I cannot do this. I can try to fight it but my flesh is winning. I'm not happy about it, I know it's wrong, I'm not happy about it but this is reality for me right now. So, please forgive me, protect me, please make everything okay again".
I would pray this, and then fall into my sin and God was always so understanding. While I still felt guilty, I knew I wouldn't be able to fight this sin on my own, so I just kept praying about it. It was a crappy pattern of praying, "God, why am I failing?" and then failing again.
A couple days ago, I noticed I would follow my routine, get back from work, but the opporutinity to fail would not be there. I would be invited out with friends and not get back till late, I would be busy with diffierent jobs around my dorm, I would be distracted, and at first, my initial reaction was frustration. I wasn't getting time to do the thing I was trying not to do. But then I realized, God was setting me up for success. He was preventing me from failing in my sin, and I was mad about it (just shows how flawed we are as humans). And last night I finally pieced this together.
God sees us, He hears our prayers, and He is going to help us every time. I am still working to overcome this sin, and I know for a fact that I cannot do it on my own. I have tried and I am weak. But God is strong, and I don't have to come to Him as a perfect human. I can come to Him as a big blubbering mess and He will fix the problem. He's a friend and a father. Just because I am a Christian does not mean I don't struggle with sin and it is totally alright to be open about it (we actually should). The reason we avoid sin is because God knows that sin only causes hurt, nothing good ever comes out of it. But human nature is not to do what is good, it wants to sin and wants to cling to worldly desires. However, the soul craves goodness. I cannot stress this enough: try your best to cling to God and when you cannot, ask Him for help because He will always, 10 out of 10 times, save you.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading! I do apologize for the vauge-ness of the story, I really wasn't planning on posting this and I just wanted to share the general idea of who God is and put the focus more on Him than myself. Let me know if there's anything you would like me to talk about next time and have a great day! Best wishes,
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