Preface

This God, see, He's unique. Who else would forgive so many mistakes and overlook so many faults, just to keep His people His? Sure, He gets mad at us sometimes, but He doesn't stay mad. Loving and caring are what He likes to do. He will take pity on us and attack for us the monsters in our thoughts and our behaviors that we've been unable to rid ourselves of. He'll take those things and make them nothing. He will stick by us and show us what love is, just like He did with so many others before us.

--paraphrase of Micah 7:18-20, written during a Bible study weeks ago

Two things that I want to expand on from that: God works in our lives and in our selves. He does stuff. He changes stuff. He is good and He perseveres in faithfully doing good. The character of God as portrayed in Scripture is a very comforting thing to focus on. Through the camp that I was blessed to be able to attend this past week, God has worked in my life and spoken truth into my heart, so I expect to have a lot to post in a short period of time as I process what I have been learning.

A second thing: there's a reason I refer to "monsters" in my paraphrase of the passage to Micah. In my mind, as I try to picture and describe things that bother or frighten me--things I can't seem to conquer myself--I call them monsters. In this case, sin; when I was a teenager, I thought it was my schoolwork, but in retrospect it was really my attitude. This past academic year, I've been fairly intentional about fighting some certain specific monsters, and though I feel I have really made some progress, it seems as if there are always more of the pesky things.

However, "fighting" is a misleadingly active term for what I'm doing. I'm naturally fairly passive, especially with perceived threats. For example, the bees and wasps that occasionally buzzed around me this past week were greeted with no swattings, brushings-away, or running-aways; I just held still and politely requested verbally that they please go buzz elsewhere (no, I wasn't expecting the verbal requests to work). (side note: this method of dealing with threats is part of why I call myself a rabbit.)

Given the Biblical mandates to resist the devil and to stand firm (see James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:6-9, and Ephesians 6:10-17), I'm guessing that I should probably be more assertive with spiritual threats than I am with insects. However, the aforementioned passages also include submitting to God and being strong in the Lord. It is only in His might that we can resist those monsters successfully, so my plan is to keep pursuing Him and working to trust Him more as I try to change. I'm hoping that more boldness will come, but I want to find it by knowing where my confidence comes from, not by trying to feel bold.