Can't say I haven't tried but who says I can't do.

14 days into the new year and I have already forsaken my own word. The response could be made, "well you are only human," which is true. I didn't intend to accomplish anything grand except finishing strong and the race is long from over. In the past 3 years I have learned many things about myself.

• I have uninterruptable drive when I am passionate about accomplishing something,
• I am not created to be a manipulator, deciever, or sarcastic man.
• I am created to be filled with integrity, righteousness, and purity
• I must be intentional in all things in order to bring excellence to them.
• I start well, but the finish takes much more work.

In the past 3 years I have also learned something about God.

• He is faithful
• He is my strength
• Regardless of all else, I can survive simply being in relationship with Him

The strange thing is that while I am typing this I can feel my heart being tested as to whether I simply know these things or whether I truly believe and would die for these truths. The answer is, "Today, yes I would."
I can't say for tomorrow though. I may wake up and start strong but by the end of the day be worn, battered, bruised, my weapon may be lost, my sight blurry. I may look nothing like this moment where I truly believe that God is my rock and shelter. That He is my restorer. That He is the ultimate "swiss army knife."
I can say that I want that to be true tomorrow. I want that to be true by the end of today but honestly that takes work. It takes intentionality, I have to let my heart bleed without response, I can't use my mind as a bodyguard, I have to limit my tongue, I have to watch my left and right hand to make sure they are working together for good and not for evil. This is hard. My hope and my belief is that it will not always be this way.

I was watching A Beautiful Mind a few weeks ago and before now I couldn't fully grasp what really spoke to me in the story. I think I just got it. John Nash is a brilliant mathematician and no his theories and proofs aren't widely known but from what I can remember about him he developed some incredible theories on probability. Anyway, the man suffers from Schizophrenia and delusions of grandeur for a majority of his adult years. The movie depicts this in the form of reoccurring characters and scenarios that never change or age. This is my mind, no I don't see people who don't exist but the scenarios and events that never change are in my head. I don't think I'm a secret agent working for the government, I believe that people don't truly care for me and that I need to be the most intelligent person in the room to be liked. I must know it all. This is simply a lie. I've talked about this before but here is the difference. John decides to not take medication to treat this which means that in order to beat the appearance of these hallucinations and delusions he must reason them away or simply ignore them. Initially, this conflicts with him having a family and having a job at first so he isolates himself until he realizes he cant stabilize himself unless he is around what? Reality! The battlefield of the mind is a dangerous location. It isn't easily escapable nor is it easy to find. In my mind, I will fight the same thoughts thousands of time before I die. But there is help, 1 Timothy 2:22 says, "Flee from the lusts of your youth and pursue righteousness!" This is something I stand on because everything that I have come through to this point is my youth.  Youth is defined in the dictionary as "the first or early period of anything." So if that is the truth then I must be mature today. I am mature today and tomorrow God-willing and Todd-humbling I will be more mature. But these things I struggle with I have struggled with my whole life. I have developed my entire personality around fitting all situations. I misunderstood that verse where Paul says,"I became all things to all people." I thought it meant change who you are to fit every situation and that was it and missed the last part. He continues to say "that some may be saved. I do all this for the sake of the Gospel." I have never applied the gospel practically into my personality shift. I have become the world for the sake of myself and not for the sake of Christ. So, going back to the movie in the end of the movie someone asks if he still sees the hallucinations and it pans to show them and he says yes I just simply ignore them. I think I can do that. I think I could ignore these struggles and while I have at times that only works for so long. I know that with Christ we have the ability to conquer, I don't fully know how yet but I know we do. I know that one way is to combat them with the word.

To speak out, "This thought or behaviour doesn't line up with the Word of my savior and therefore holds no power," is a challenge for me. I risk sounding silly if I walk around talking to myself or rather shouting. Heaven forbid I sound foolish talking to myself. So, I do this covertly in my head... that takes almost no effort and I don't sound foolish. Yet that battle continues, why because immunity to the wound has built up and the camp isn't rattled by the thoughts that they recognize as weaker by this point. So, this is what I must do. I must speak this. I must breathe life into these words. You can't breathe into a thought (Mental note: forget for a moment that you are constantly breathing and oxygen is travelling to the brain I know what I meant) Words take breath, and multiple sounds, and thoughts. It would be like giving my thoughts a bazooka. Also, the word says out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Which means not only am I saying it with a little more intention but I am believing it a little bit more strongly in the first place to say it.

I say all this to simply confess that I have not held my word accountable in my own heart. Which means I have not been believing that I am a conqueror, and a man of integrity. And while the things I have stumbled in are only disciplines my word is not a discipline. Integrity has to go much deeper.

So I pray today that I would find my voice to speak forth the things that aren't true, claim them defeated and move forward.