Ready for my home!

I had a friend title a post "I Am an Alien". It was as if she had read my journal over the past three years, specifically the last year. I have really struggled with getting closer to God because of the discomfort it brings me in having to live in this world.

"Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation". 1 Peter 2:11-12

It is human nature to want to "belong". Yet as I grow in my relationship with Christ, the more I don't belong....not just in the world, but in my church. No one seems to "get" me. I am about as real as it comes. I don't think I have a fake bone in my body....sometimes that is a real curse! Yet tonight I was asked by a dear friend if I feel fake? It was because I was sharing with her my struggles that I am facing right now. They are some pretty serious issues, yet at the same time I am full of joy and hope. She wanted to know how I could talk about a life that is full of some miserable struggles and issues yet be in front of people smiling and giving advice. Try as I might, I could not get to come out of my mouth anything that expressed how I feel! Yes I am in despair some days, but those are the days I take my eyes of my Precious Jesus, the Author and Perfector of my Faith! The days I wake up and cling to him from the moment my mind is concious till I drift off to sleep, I am filled with hope in the pit of despair! I kind of see that as normal. I realized quickly in my conversation that even that made me an alien!

All your commands are trustworthy; help me, for I am being persecuted without cause.Psalm 119:86

I am learning more each day that my life is no mine. NOTHING about my life is mine! Not my desires, not my minutes, not my house, not my money, not my talents, definitly not my children! If a miscarriage of your first child didn't teach me that deep enough, adoption has! I have not right to tell God what I am going to do or not do! I have not "right" to tell him I have had enough of a loveless marriage (speaking from years past, not present! John is awesome!!!!), I have no "right" to tell him I am overwhelmed and He needs to let up. He knows all that already! He knew when he would call me to take my last step of faith that it would bring challenges in EVERY area of my life and the life of every member of my family. Yet He said, "Take it and watch Me!" That is something this world doesn't understand! If I made a pro and con list for that decision, the cons would FAR outweight he pros! God doesn't work on pro and con lists! I am pretty sure building an ark when it had never rained, marching around a wall seven times, putting your son on an alter and raising a knife to him would never have made the pro and con list decision making strategies, yet these are all commands from God documented in scripture.

Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25

John 14:17
that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

The world rejects Truth. It doesn't hear it. It can't. But when Christians look no different than the world, how can we even hope they will want to hear it? Oh God, how I want to live in a way that make the world want You!

John 15:19
"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.

But living that way, will mean that the world at times will hate me....and that is a sacrifice I am having to learn is worth it....even if the "world" in this sometimes means my own fellow Christians. And that my dear friends makes me very ready for my Home in Glory!