Where All Words Can Lead

May 21, 2019. 30 Days to Write, Day 5

So since the start of today (which, for me, is technically yesterday afternoon), I’ve done the following:

• Ran 4KM.
• 3 sets of Shoulder Flys, UCV Raises, and Kickthroughs. 10 reps each.
• 25 (proper) push-ups, 2 minute rest, 40 pushups, 2 minute rest, to failure – should have been 60, but I gave up after 45.
• Drove around with the nephew and took at least one keeper of a shot from yesterday’s sunset.
• Read through the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, and wrote in my private journal.
• 3 sets of (proper) underhand pull-ups, to ninja jump tucks, to renegade rows. Again, 10 reps each.
• 3 sets of, well, I don’t know what Jeff Cavaliere calls them, but it involves a band hung from my pull-up bar, and me pulling and kicking. That was more of a cool-down set, honestly.
• Posted in IG/FB after finding out that the Preview App doesn’t do it for you automatically.
• Ate a little bit more today to make up for all the moving and lifting… and in this I realised that fitness is a three-leg stool – diet, exercise, and rest. The first two won’t mean much if I don’t have enough rest to recover and to rebuild.

Little wins. I call them little because I still feel like crap. Or, well, it did boost me a bit when chose to list everything down as I just did… something we all should be doing, honestly… but I still feel pretty down because apparently I did all these things at the cost of a lowered focus on my actual job online… the one that keeps me up all night.

I know I shouldn’t be talking about work like this, but for the sake of keeping things discrete and simple, I’ll just say that I’ve been slipping in my consistency, and though there are many factors to consider, those which are under my control haven’t exactly been addressed… or at least I haven’t addressed them enough.

In my latest post on Instagram I lamented on the thought that I was becoming a liability at work, at church, at home, and in life in general. The point seemed to drive its way home once again when I was called out for my lack of consistency, as seen in the slip-ups we’ve had as of late, with regards to myself and a partner. Together, we are Virtual hand of the company we are employed in.

Again, I don’t want to blame anyone, but I would rather look at what I have within my control and just work on that. In this particular case, I suppose it was just right for me to start off with the list of little wins, because it just prepares me to handle the little losses which I have blown out of proportion.

I guess that’s the message for me today. Wins are wins. Losses are losses. Don’t downplay one and blow the other out of proportion.

You can stop reading here if you don’t want to read me going all preachy.

Wins and losses are common in that we learn from both. Like money, fame, sex, and power, they are what they are: tools, or otherwise secondary as all that is finite is secondary to what is eternal.

In my particular case, what I hold as eternal, what I believe is not just the tenets of Christianity, nor the commandments and the moral standards that the religion upholds… no, even these, I believe, are secondary to the Rock upon which it was all built upon – what I hold as eternal, what I hold as my personal anchor is Christ Himself.

And as I write this, I am brought to share that this faith which Christ has established in me and in all, for all to receive… this faith is what makes the wins sweeter. This faith is what makes the losses far easier to handle and respond to.

I believe Christ is the Author of my faith as mentioned in His word, and as I’ve said so many times in the past, this faith is what puts money in its place, as a tool. This faith is what causes us to recognise fame and power as a benefit, and not a goal – for without corresponding wisdom, fame and/or power can kill a person as much as it can bring life.

The faith Christ establishes is what causes me to understand, underneath the fact that I’ve been revelling in porn since I was in my pre-teen years, that sex is absolutely the celebration of the sweetest union of man and wife. The faith Christ establishes has me in awe of this – without it, I would probably be rendered subhuman, for lack of a better description!

I don’t know what you believe in, and I don’t dare shove this down your throat. I probably just did, and if you took it that way, it was not my intention to sound religious or superior. No, not at all. The confidence I have behind these words comes from the truth that there is no cleansing or atonement on your part in order for you to have the same faith. No, if you want Christ, then call on Him, and you will have Him.

I’m not guaranteeing a genie who makes everything better according to your standards at the snap of a finger. I’m not guaranteeing a miraculous intervention – though it is possible; No.

I’m saying without a doubt that this reality is flawed, fallen, and full of errors. And more than a ticket to heaven after all this shit, more than the temporary improvement of our finite conditions, more than the fruition of our own flawed ideals, Christ isn’t an example to get out of all of this, but rather the literal Life we can have in all the death that this world is absolutely soaked in. He doesn’t teach us how to get to the light, He himself IS the endless Light that we can possess in this darkness, which, though we believe it or not, is temporary.

More than a religion, a set of rules and instructions, more than a standard, Christ is God, and God wants to help you, not condemn you.

Gosh, the more I write about it, the more I think I kick myself. I really am shoving it down, huh.

Let me just end with this. I believe in some way or form, that God, through Christ, is constantly, faithfully, lovingly for you, and in your time of need and desperation, call out in the darkness.

I believe He answers.

In spite of all the confusion and all the self-pity I’m personally going through right now, it simply couldn’t be helped, I suppose, that all the words I churn out would lead to the Rock which I stand on.

Give Christ a shot. Peace.