Dismantle

Verb: to take apart; disassemble; tear down

Today was on the emotional/heavy side for me. I worked and enjoyed most of that. Then ran errands. Then a very good Water's Edge to round out the night. Pretty much an average Tuesday. 

Being a human is hard work. Well, I suppose being a human is easy, incredibly easy. Being what we're called to be, something more than small, self-absorbed, gratification-seeking creatures, is really hard work. I'm growing convinced that one of my most daunting enemies is myself. Impulse versus patience, fight versus flee, self versus love. Constantly it seems I undo my best work. It's like I'm knitting furiously while another version of myself sits beside me, undoing my stitches just as furiously. And just as I'm becoming more sure that I'm my own worst enemy, I grow equally as sure with every passing day that the only escape from this one-step-forward-two-steps-back manner of living is God. 

In a culture and a society constantly asserting that the highest level of actualization is self-actualization, I sometimes feel like a trout swimming upstream. My generation seems to have drunk an exceptional amount of this self-involved Kool-Aid. "Find yourself and then you'll find the meaning of life!" they promise. Oh I've often found myself buying (both consciously and subconsciously) into that line of thinking. But I find this only leads to more emptiness and confusion than that with which I began. I'm growing increasingly weary of myself. I'd like to become more like what I was made to be, less of me and more of Jesus. Don't get me wrong, I know I am specifically and uniquely designed, but I think those distinctive aspects of myself become magnificent only in surrender to the One who created them. Less of me and more of Truth and Love, please.