Overwhelmed

I often find myself overwhelmed. This feeling comes in many different forms; stress, anxiety, joy, compassion, awe, pressure, discontent, nervousness, angst, sadness, happiness, relief, pain, anguish, love. The problem with these feelings is that many of them are worldly flesh desires and reactions to sin and a fallen world. Not often enough are there feelings of being overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. Too often we as sinful humans allow our worldly desires of our flesh to block the desires and will of God for our happiness. When we block His desires for us and follow our own desires we sin against God and are disobedient. What happens though is that eventually we get humiliated and suffer because of our sinful nature to desire what we want and not what God wants for us. Then we get totally overwhelmed by the pressures that we feel upon us. In reality this is God putting His hand on us and taking control over our life so that we are more obedient to His will for us and less compelled to our own desires.

When there is something in life where God has put pressure on me it’s for a reason and I must learn to obey Him in that matter. If I bring all my “arguments and … every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5) regarding the matter, everything will become as clear as daylight to me. Sometimes I need to act like a 5 year old child and be told what to do. When I act like an adult I try to reason it out; but I don’t really have the reasoning capacity for that like God. When we try to be wise and reason we block out what the Holy Spirit is showing us and trying to guide us toward. When we do this we see nothing; we need to see like a child. Only then do we walk in His will. Jesus said “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (Mathew 11:25). Children are so amazing, I wish that I could see through the eyes of a child sometimes and realize how much bigger God our father is and let Him just take control over me and protect me like a loving father. We get so arrogant and strong willed though as we grow up and become callas toward God and we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the worldly pressures that we face every day.

In the beginning this wasn’t so, everything was perfect until Adam and Eve were tempted by their worldly desires. So since creation we are in the midst of being redeemed by God for His new creation. Redemption doesn’t come easy though. We must be obedient to God and know that Jesus sacrificed Himself for our redemption and ALL of our sins have been paid for on the cross. It’s so hard sometimes to block out the influences that surround us everyday and put our focus on Jesus our savior to allow the Holy Spirit to overwhelm us and not the sins of the world. I have been so overwhelmed in my life and it has lead to a life of sin and sorrow. I am now working toward reconciliation and to God and redemption through His son Jesus to allow the Holy Spirit to take control of my life and live obedient to His will for me. Once I do this and not worry about the past and just worry about what is and what’s to come will I be able to totally rejoice and say thank you God, bring it on, I can’t wait to see you and be at your party in heaven. So what’s the lesson in all that? I must learn from my experiences, make changes, and try again. I can’t change the past but I look toward the future and say I am going to live my life in obedience to you God and just wait for the joys that will rain on me through living my life for your will and not mine.