Just a prayer...

Hey Lord,

Hi, it's me again. Guess you've seen how my day went eh? What do you think?

Oh wait, don't answer that. I know how you see my day. I've fallen again. Like the countless times in the past, I am back on my knees.

Father, it feels so routine-like to me now. I stumble. I fail. I destroy myself. I wreck our relationship. Then? In the rubble I kneel down and call out to you. Aren't you tired of that? I mean, if you'd just let go of me and give up on me... I believe I'd completely understand. I feel so unfaithful. So dirty. Nothing seems to have changed.

I feel like ... hmmm... this mad man off the street. I bathe in the mud, and take in all the dirt that I can. Then you come along, like this social worker. You wash me clean, give me a bath, fix me up. And... TA-DA I'm this cool looking guy. All clean and washed up. But you know? Nothing seems to have changed inside -- I'm still a mad man who won't be able to stay clean.

Lord, I'm tired of this. Aren't you? I'm tired of myself. It's an endless cycle.

I don't want to say sorry anymore, I feel like I'm lying yet again. But Lord, you've put this desire in me to keep seeking You. And I can't ignore that. Help?

I'm torn up within me. I feel wretched, yet I can feel Your love calling out to me. I want to give up, on myself, on everything ... but You just wont let me, now would You? Stubborn love, eh? Your faithfulness is just too great, even for my guilt. But Lord, what do I do?

Please answer me Lord...

In Jesus Name,

Amen.

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Son, let go. Let go of all those thoughts that keep telling you that you're worth nothing. I came all the way from heaven to save you, didn't I? I won't do that if you don't mean anything to me.

Now, we both know YOU know why you keep returning to your old faltering ways. Son, when you let go, you let GO completely. You don't hold on to little pieces of it. What happened to "I surrender?"

And Son, you don't just change overnight. If you did, how would you learn? Remember child, you're growing. Growing kids don't get handed things on a silver platter anymore, they don't get their food blended up for them anymore. They start getting ready for "big kid stuff." It's a process. You know, my child, that I would very much want to help you -- and I am. But you have to let me help you, in the way I know how. Don't try going before me, my son. Your ways will never be as high as mine, My word is your light.

I know, it's been quite some time already. But, son, remember a process takes place over a period of time.

Okay, now I'm not saying you're all good. Remember, you have to make that choice to follow me DAILY. It's a conscious choice. Choose Me.

With Love,

Your Father in Heaven

Let Go

If you're feeling all bagged down by just a whole bunch of stuff?

LET THEM GO.

No chains are to be tied on to us ever since He set us free and we accepted that. That's the key though, "acceptance." Salvation IS about acceptance.

We accept:

1) the truth that God loves us and He came to Earth to die for you and me

Salvation comes from the recognition of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. His divinity and humanity rolled into a perfect Lamb that was slain and came back to life to give us the victory we can never attain on our own. (John 3:16; Rom. 10:9)

2) that we are WORTH saving.

He did so, we must be worth loving so much. A God coming down to Earth and dying by the hands of His creation? What more proof about love do you need? We KNOW love BECAUSE He loved us. (1 John 4:19; John 1:1-5; Luke 19:10)

3) that we NEED Him.

He's so loving that He'd allow us to go our way if that's what we want. He won't force His salvation onto us, He wants us to willingly accept it. (John 3:16)

4) that we HAVE been forgiven

This is probably the hardest thing to accept; for the most part, we accept His grace., but we fail to accept His forgiveness. How? We fail to forgive ourselves. "He forgave us all our sins. (Col. 2:13b)"

5) His lordship as part of the process

We have been born into sin, no way out of it but through Him. Thing is, we don't just get whisked up to heaven the moment we accept Him as our Savior, we are commanded to still live in this world while not being of it. Hard eh? Given that we are NOT capable of doing good. So what's His answer to that? "Accept me as LORD and SAVIOR -- not just as SAVIOR." His ways are sure, and His plans are perfect. We have no idea what we're doing, we need His guidance. (Jeremiah 29:11)

This Saint is not in a good position right now, and he knows this is what he needs to do: LET GO.

To be able to fully follow Him? We must let go of the pride that we keep as part of what we THINK is righteousness, most of all? We must let go of the need to control our lives. Salvation is about acceptance, true. But acceptance will not be complete without letting go -- we never really fully "accept" something until we let go of something else.

Just let go. If it seems like you can't? Cry out to Him. He'll listen. He's our Father after all.

To everyone out there who has a relationship with Christ, LISTEN TO ME.

We are SAINTS who are to live in this world but NOT be OF IT.

That means LIVING as citizens of HEAVEN on Earth.

It definitely is not as EASY as it sounds.

We are, after all, NOT CAPABLE of doing any GOOD.

As DESCENDANTS of ADAM, we inherited a NATURE of SIN.

All we are and ever HOPE to be has been DAMNED.

GRACE, however, was GIVEN through JESUS CHRIST's BLOOD.

Only by HIS POWER can we hope to OVERCOME.

His VICTORY is complete.

So why do we still FALTER?

Because WE CHOOSE TO.

We have only TWO VOICES to LISTEN to:

1) GOD's voice, which speaks TRUTH and commands RIGHTEOUSNESS through OBEDIENCE.

and

2) the OTHER voice, which fill us with LIES that steer us AWAY from the LIGHT.

Every DECISION we make, and every ACTION we do is a CHOICE we've taken.

The lies are STRONG, stronger than US.

But ONLY if we ALLOW it to be, by STRAYING from HIS LOVE.

The MORE the lies?

The CLOSER we should DRAW TO HIM.

Hear me out, FELLOW SAINTS.

Listen to the cautious WARNINGS of him who has gone ASTRAY and is finding his WAY BACK.

It is HARDER to go your OWN way and then REPENT.

Listen, it will be BETTER for you to CONSTANTLY OBEY.

Been there, done that -- Don't follow me.

Yet to those who have been WANDERING OFF.

Follow me, TOGETHER let's go BACK to our FATHER.

With LOVE and BLESSINGS,

TheProdigalSaint

Decision Made

After belaboring through my old posts, I realized two things:

1) they ARE embarrassing and some are quite ridiculous

and

2) they're a testament of how "prodigal" I was and where I am now.

Can't say I've traveled back far enough, but surely I've been somewhere. If anything, I'm keeping these posts up because "He who began a good work in me(you) will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus" (reworded it a bit, but it's from Philippians 1:6)

It's final then, theprodigalsaint is back to writing.

New Year

2012 is here, and this saint has been negligent of his writing duties for quite some time now.

But, that's going to change... NOW.

I've been doing a LOT of thinking lately, and a LOT of thinking and prayer leads to a lot of new insight that I would love to share. So I've finally decided to put them up. This platform doesn't seem to be adequate enough though. This blog has been mine for a few years now, and somethings here are not really uplifting nor encouraging. So yes, I promise to write weekly (praying I could keep that up) but as to where I'd be writing, I'd be figuring out a way to get that worked out -- either I clean this one up, or relocate.

Rest assured, I will be writing soon. I'll probably start on February (If I can start earlier, then all the better!)

Till then,

theprodigalsaint