lying on the floor

Please read at your own risk. I've laid parts of my soul bare this time around.

Nothing's fine I'm torn

I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake
And I can see
The perfect sky is torn
[I'm] a little late
I'm already torn
-Natalie Imbruglia, "Torn"

Have ever been knocked on your ass by sin? I mean truly knocked on your ass. Not a more-or-less standard “I feel guilty about doing this” kind of feeling, but the feeling that you have truly and intentionally spat in the face of your creator; your father. The one that loves you wholeheartedly despite countless failings and betrayals.

Today I was knocked on my ass by sin. Probably the second or third time in as many months that I have truly felt like my soul has been pummeled by a blood-thirsty 350 pound line backer. And my soul is the punter. While I hate this raw feeling, the feeling of my broken soul being laid bare before a perfect God, it has gotten me thinking and wondering. It has made me think about the person I’ve become; the things that I ascribe value to, the ways that I treat people. I feel that if my Junior High self came up to me today and saw what I’ve made of my life this year, he would be truly saddened. Saddened at my lack of faith, saddened that I act like I am the most important person in my life, saddened that I value my own pleasure and comfort over following the God that I claim to follow and serve. I feel that I have truly become the man that has built his house on the sand of society. The sand of pleasure and comfort instead of the bedrock of Jesus. It’s a great house, by the way, with a slanted roof and beautiful bay windows looking out over the sun setting in the West. But now that there is a storm in my life, the foundation is sinking. Sinking. Sinking. What good are bay windows and a bougainvillea when there is no solid foundation? I feel that my well spring of faith has been drying up for a long time and if something doesn’t change soon, may dry up forever. No one ever told me that life would just get harder in a way that I believed them. That eventually there wouldn’t be an easy-access, committed community of people to hold me up in the midst of a broken, spiritually war-torn world. That the loss of innocence sucks.

I sometimes feel like the character Cipher in The Matrix when he asks, “why, oh why didn’t I choose the blue pill?” When I was confronted with the choice to obey God or to turn away and seek my own ways, why the hell didn’t I choose to obey God? I never believed that seeking my own ways, my own pleasure would actually lead to very real consequences and that sinning once makes it that much harder to choose God the next time. Sure, I ascribed lip-service to it, but my actions lately have proven it to be that and only that. Lip-service. I honestly could not tell you to this day what caused me to commit the first in this latest sickening series of sins. Sometimes satan really knows what he is doing. He knows just the time and place when you are going to be most vulnerable and, if you are not sly as a serpent, he’ll convince you to eat of the forbidden fruit with not but a polished, softly whispered lie. Once you’ve taken that first bite, there is no easy way of going back. Why the hell didn’t I just TRUST God that HE KNEW WHAT WAS BEST FOR ME??? Why the hell didn’t I believe Him when he said that following Him is better than living for myself????

I feel like I am clinging to the sides of an abyss. I have fallen so deep into the abyss that there is but a pin-prick of light above that marks the existence of an exit. It feels that there is little hope of making it to the top and a great chance of falling forever downwards. But as long as there is any light at all, there is hope. There is hope of rescue, of a familiar voice calling out not to give up, not to let go. Just as it would take an immense amount of effort to climb out of a bottomless pit, so is it difficult to come back to a place of feeling right with God. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that God will forgive us when we come before him and confess and ask his forgiveness, in that sense it is not difficult to be forgiven. I am more talking about the human aspects of feeling right with God. Of stepping off the wide road of the world that leads to death and despair and stepping onto the narrow road that leads to life. The road that demands that you put others before yourself, the road that demands obedience, the road that demands love. The road that, if truly followed, keeps you moving beyond the sins of your past into a relationship with God where you will no longer desire the pleasures of sin. Moving toward a place where you are able to feel and recognize the full love of your Father Creator and where you love Him right back.

I don’t know why I keep my sins buried in my soul’s backyard, rotting away and infecting heart and soul. Well, that is kind of a lie. I know why I do it, I just don’t understand why it seems like such a good idea at the time and so ridiculously sh**ty now. When did I stop trusting my friends top help me through hard times? Yeah, sin sometimes feels amazingly shameful, but when did I stop believing that confession is good for the soul? Maybe it just feels too close to home. Like my friends are just too close to the situation. I want to be seen as this strong pillar that can’t be touched. Idiot. Only God is a strong pillar. A capstone. And me? I’m just cold and shamed, lying naked on the floor.

I am Judas. I have seen and believed the words of Jesus, followed him down many paths before yet when it comes down to it, I choose to follow my own ways.

I'm a little late. I'm already torn. But Lord, I want to be brought back and healed.