Self help

I had an interesting talk with Mike today. We were just catching up over lunch, and I was talking about how I've been feeling pretty professionally frustrated lately. To be more specific, I've been feeling really, really lazy. What have I gotten done? What am I doing with my time? Anyway, we got to talking about spiritual warfare in the midst of this, and how the devil speaks lies to us - in fact Mike mentioned that Satan doesn't have much real power, but he has the power to accuse, which he uses to the utmost degree. So Mike was kind of mentioning how he thought that these thoughts that were coming into my head about me being lazy was a sort of spiritual warfare. He then went on to affirm that he did not think I was lazy, and that most people that know me well would not think that, but think that I am relatively responsible, so on and so forth. BTW, thanks for that Mike! But when he was saying that, there were all of these alarm bells going off in my head - how do you discern if something like that is from the enemy or if it is the truth, if it's something that the Holy Spirit is convicting me of? I, for a fact, know that I have been very lazy, and have been spending way too much time playing video games, or watching TV, or whatever. So I started sharing this a little bit, and then it hit me - what is the fruit of these thought patterns in my head? Well, usually I start feeling really bad about myself. And because of my self-loathing that comes out of it, I want to distract myself which leads me to further withdraw from what I know I should be expending my energy on. It's a really bad, unhealthy cycle, and that was my answer. So I can take a truth - I'm being lazy in the negative, or I should put more energy into this or that in the positive, but I need to listen to the Lord's voice in it rather than Satan's. Instead of self-condemnation should come repentance and change. Sidenote: I've been finding out lately that repentance is a really beautiful thing. It's something we should do all the time - you really get to experience God's love and grace through it.

So that's my self-help for right now. Don't get bitter, get better (just kidding, that's something that Steve Lavin used to say. Thank the Lord for Ben Howland). But seriously, don't let Satan accuse me with self-condemnation and guilt. Be convicted by the Spirit but then respond in the way the Lord intends.