IT FEELS LIKE TODAY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- guilt shmilt. who needs it? i am looking back on this day with a certain amount of distaste. i got up at 7:15...good start. then i went to staff training. also good. then i finished up my christmas shopping and got stuff wrapped and shipped. also good. but after that, there wasn't really anything. technically i am getting paid for this day of nothingness. that's unsettling, you know? oh yeah, there are all sorts of justifications for these kinds of things when you're on staff...like how one week you work 30 hours and the next week you work 60. it evens itself out in the end. or how sometimes you just don't have much to do right before christmas break. sure sure. it's still distasteful. however, i think i'm at one of those crossroads, and after a long talk with jenni that went every which way but could easily be summarized to this very thing, i need to choose between feeling guilty and gross about it and pulling a classic meghan "this is a stupid day and i just want it to be over" maneuver OR acknowledge it as difficult and accept grace and learn from it. jenni and i decided that for all the ways we humans induce guilt in ourselves, it is one of the single most unmotivating and counterproductive emotions on the face of the earth. it only initiates a downward spiral. it's ridiculous! why do we do it? i think this is a fantastic apologetic, because i can tell you from experience that attempts at self-motivation are utterly useless. feeling guilty prompts nothing more in us than loftier and ever more unattainable goals. we will just crash and burn that much more violently in the end. what's even crazier is that the alternative is grace, and i'll be darned--it works! it's the most motivating fact of life that i've ever encountered! i barely get it at all. all i know is that tonight, i felt convicted. i felt guilty at first, because i'd had a lazy day and i ate too much. but then later i felt convicted, because i had chosen my own path--the path of self-condemnation and guilt, which only led to a more intense lack of motivation. conviction, on the other hand, feels so right. it is not like guilt, because it comes from the mouth of God, and the mouth of God speaks kindness, which leads to repentance. repentance is not coming up with a gameplan that will assure that we won't make the same mistakes again. repentance is knowing without a shadow of a doubt that my efforts are futile. FUTILE! my standards, my laws, my commitments, they're meaningless. what i need is the grace of God in my life, in every second of my life. i don't need new year's resolutions. i need to resolve every hour to depend on God's power and intention to transform me. i was hoping this would come out a little more coherently than it did. no prob, bob. this entry was sponsored in part by the discipline of remaining unknown. 12:17 am - 12.15.2005 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- there's music playing: actually there's not i'm reading: yes. i do read. |
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