Avril Lavigne once sang, "Why you have to go and make things so complicated? I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else gets me frustrated..." And similarly when we're living on this earth things can get so complicated when we don't even know what we're doing.

When you feel like you're falling; when things go awry; when you just feel you're in some inescapable nightmare and just waiting for it to end, and everything goes spiralling downwards; when you feel as if the world is against you in everything you do --- has there ever been a consideration to relinquish control over the situation in the first place (though you don't have a single iota of it in the first place, when Murphy's Law is in action!), and display ultimate surrender, like what Jesus did when He allowed the Father to use Him (Jesus) to glorify Himself through death on the cross and ultimately destroying the curse of Satan's temptation once and for all?

Or pridefully, you think you can do it, even though you are one of a fallen race, so wretched that you will just enter a spiritual death when your mortal human body fails? From dust we were made, and to dust we will return to. But our soul, the one and unique us, where does it go? God says there are only 2 places: Heaven or Hell. Have we even made that choice to place our trust in Him, or just throw our arms up in despair and commit suicide to end all problems (or so we think?) on this earth?

It's your choice.


Joel.

Proclaim Your awesome power
Tell of mighty deeds
Declare Your future kingdom
Of everlasting peace

And my eyes they look unto You always
And I am captured by Your Majesty

All of my days
I will sing of Your greatness
All of my days
I will speak of Your grace
All of my days
I will tell of Your wonderous love
Your love in my life
Your love

All Your works will praise You
Your children bless Your name
We speak of all Your goodness
We walk in fields of grace

A brilliant Hillsongs song. Yes, all of my days I will praise Him, no matter how tough the going will get. Because He's God! And no one else deserves it.

Joel.

Can be so subtle, so underhanded, so fluid, so slick, that you don't know it happened, but end up finding yourself so distant and so far away. Frustration sets in, anger sets in, things seem to go wrong all the time without Him around.

Contrast it to when you trust in Him, you know He's around, you know that whatever happens is His plan for you. His presence can be so comforting that without Him around it just feels worse than being neck deep in slimy mud.

True? 4 weeks without His presence, without knowing what goes on next, and it just feels crap. It can be a culmination of many factors added together that your spirit just feels deflated, in Proverbs it is written that :a heavy heart crushes the bones" and that feeling, a really down one at that too, is more than enough to turn you off whatever else you are doing. Even when you choose to hope in Him, it all seems so futile. And everything seems to be going wrong.

The feeling's really terrible. Even worse when it was off a high note, that caused complacency to develop in the heart. But, time and again, God will do that to strengthen our faith in Him, to humble us, to cause us to realise that we cannot do everything with our own hands. Even the way our hearts beat and lungs expand and contract, it is all governed by the laws of God. All this to even ensure our basic fragile existence here on this earth.

Falling away is bad. Yet, a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalms 22, or was it 51?) God will not despise, and He will more than willingly show compassion again to us fallen wretched beings.

How great a God is He? You decide.

Joel.

This has been plaguing me for ages. And seriously, I hate it. I must admit, if the devil is using it to deter me from serving then I think he's doing a really good job at this point in time. I feel drained, deflated, demoralised, and not willing to do anything else at all. Really. I react negatively to constructive criticism, I need lots of pushing to get things done, I move about sluggishly.

I look at my own schedule, and instead of thanking God for putting everything in place nicely I start to complain about having such a fully filled screwed up schedule, icnluding the part where I have to be on stage for 8 weeks consecutively. Saturday, Friday, Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, Sunday, Saturday, Sunday. I bitch. I rave and rant. About how I've got no time to do anything and I'm blogging as I speak.

I am screwed. Definitely. I've not recovered from the trauma of last month fully yet. And it's influencing my life, pervasively, into all corners that have as yet been untouched by it.

Where is that spark that used to fill me up? It's fading. The flame passion for God, the desire to see souls saved, has all been replaced singularly by this letter called "I". It's all about me at the point of this time, and it's bad. Very bad indeed. Why I fall. Why I'm not at that level with God as I used to be. Why I lose focus. Why I'm not even becoming aware of the things around me anymore. I'm getting back to my 2004 lows again. Which isn't very good. I hate falling from high. Seriously.

Attitude must go, means attitude must go. There's no 2 ways about it.

Joel.