Holiness struggles

I sent an e-mail today that I really hated to send.

It was a good chronicle of how I am still held back by thoughts and emotions that are not of God. And why I wasn't breaking out of them.

The why explanation was simply this: I still believe them.

And between erring between the two sides, I choose to err on the side I've been on for most of my life because to err on the other side is ... well, just something I can't stand.

And I wondered, not for the first time, how you get to a place beyond this. Where long held ideals, long held biases, long held fears somehow are diminished under the cloak of holiness and Gods perfect healing and grace. Holiness that doesn't allow you to accept anything but perfect in yourself. Holiness that God, in His mercy, increases by clarifying your motives when you don't even realize they weren't right.

Writing that e-mail today was the perfect way to realize that I've accepted a certain area that hasn't been given over to God. It's still fully controlled by me.

It's easy to shrug it off and say "nobody's perfect" but I don't want to do that because perfection is exactly what I'm striving for.

It leaves me in a quandary. Because I don't have the faintest clue how to act outside of these false beliefs.

All that to say this:

There really ought to be a sign upon my heart
Don't judge me yet I'm an unfinished part
But I'll be perfect just according to His plan
Fashioned by the Fathers loving hand.

He's still workin' on me.
To make me what I ought to be
It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars
The Sun and the Earth and Jupiter and Mars
How loving and patient He must be
Cause He's still workin' on me.

In the mirror of His Word - reflections that I see
Make me wonder why He never gave up on me.
But He loves me as I am
And helps me when I pray
Remember He's the Potter I'm the clay.