Growing Pains

Yesterday I was a wretched child. Today I have chosen to link my transition into adulthood with my ascension to my Father’s throne. For so long, I have not known my Father. My mind thought I did, and it allowed me to be comfortable, dare I say complacent? I dare, because I dared to be complacent with my relationship with my Father. As with all relationships, and things of great substance and sustenance, it takes work to cultivate and expand the possibilities therein. I have been guilty of not tilling the grounds of my spirit and my relationship with God. What has become is a barren desert of ignorance that has plunged me further into wretchedness

I’ve always regarded myself as extremely spiritual, withstanding religious. I’ve always thought, “There’s something different about me. I’m special.” I grew to understand that what I feel is an anointing from God. But understanding without the exercise of it, or the continued pursuit of it is futile. I’ve committed to exercising in the gym of life plenty of times, but as with other empty resolutions, my resolve to keep going remains no longer than January does. As a result, I’ve only ever caught glimpses of my Father and my potential in Him. My wretchedness has become very effective at further hiding Him from me, more than He has willed Himself to be hidden. Even wretchedness has a conscience though, and every so often it will acknowledge it’s inferiority to that which it aims to harbor me from. Had I cultivated my relationship with God more, I would know enough to ask Him to reveal my wretchedness so that it could be laid bare before Him and the remedy laid before me. Because I have neglected the tools of my field, I’ve forced myself to acknowledge my wretchedness only as it acknowledges itself.

Though the scales of this serpent are slippery, I have managed to grasp it, so that I may take it to my Father to identify it. As a child, looking to gain the grace of my Father’s acceptance, I hoped that this was pleasing in His sight. As an adolescent hoping to gain the inheritance of my Father’s house, I recognized that it will take more than this gesture to show my preparedness. I have learned that the serpents will always find their way to the grounds, and my Father will protect me from them for as long as He deems it necessary. Eventually He will allow them to bite me either for the lesson in the pain, or as punishment for ignoring Him. I have been bitten, and the venom is of both. In fact I have been bitten enough that my body is covered with scars of the bites. Scars of wretchedness.

But I have made myself a glutton for punishment for entirely too long. Humbled, I return to the gym of life. I am undeterrable in my resolve to strengthen the muscles of my spirit, and to tone my relationship with God through the exercises of prayer and submission to His will. As a child I often knew what the right thing to do was, but hadn’t yet developed the fortitude to do it. As an adolescent, I came to understand my ways as a child, and I saw that my lack of fortitude was because I was lacking in God, but I was not ready to put childish things away. As a man, reborn into adulthood, I am now prepared, by the grace of my Father, to accept the challenges and blessings of my inheritance. I will live my entire life today. When the tomorrow comes I will die and ascend to my open seat next to Him on the throne of my Father.