Are You a Complete Mess Or Just a Partial One?

I’ve noticed something: most of us are … well, you know … a mess. At least part of the time. (Note: for my non-US readers, “mess” used like this means: “someone who is very unhappy, confused, etc., someone who is showing a lot of emotion especially by crying, a very dirty or untidy state or condition”—Merriam Webster online dictionary.

It’s basically someone who feels like he’s losing it (according to David Porter).
Oh, we have our good days and we think we’ve arrived, then something happens and there we go again—a mess. We should respond with faith and a positive attitude but for a while it’s a battle. Anger, frustration, fear, temptation and doubt. Why? Why!

If I were God, I think I would zap me sometimes. He must get a little tired of it. Oh, I can pretty well hold it together on the outside and keep doing what I’m supposed to do, but inside, that’s another story! And I fight and fight and fight to get my inside lined up with what I believe God wants me to be. Continue reading

Break Out of Your Prison of Feelings

The prisoner sat slumped on the side of his bed in a corner of his cell. I say cell, but no one else saw any bars. They were there, though.

Many times he awoke and thought the hated walls had collapsed. He would jump to his feet and try to run only to crash once again against a wall of … of … something, falling back to the floor in despair. Then he saw him most clearly—the jailer–huge, hideous, grinning viciously at his desperate efforts.

Someone had to come with the key because he couldn’t get out on his own.

Prison of Praiselessness

That’s the way David felt in Psalms 142, “Set me free from my prison that I may praise your name.” (v. 7, NIV).
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