Trench warfare

I spent most of today praying against various personal demons and besetting sins that are besetting something fierce this week—things like discontentment, and irritation, and selfishness, and cowardice. And then...well....

Sometimes it seems I live my life on such a small level. For instance, I got my hair cut tonight and am unpleased with the result, and do not want to go back to have more taken off, and regret soliciting opinions and listening to them instead of going with what I wanted, and regret backing down so easily, and...and it's a HAIRCUT. And I'm going a little nuts about it.

So often the big things show up in how I deal with the small things. And even the big things, like the personal demons and besetting sins, seem bigger than they used to. Really? A haircut I don't like? I'm THAT vain? THAT insecure? THAT clueless about my actual place in God's world?

I'm tired of fighting off who I am and striving for what's ahead. Not that I want to stop striving, but it's disheartening to think of how much longer I'll have to do this. On the one hand, I can't wait until I'm not so confused and so disoriented on such a regular basis. On the other hand, there's nothing I can do but wait.

All of this digging in for the long haul is wearing on me. As is the sense that I'm having such a rough time, and I'm not even doing anything important.

Or maybe that's the Enemy talking...and maybe it's the Enemy trying to trick me into thinking I'm fighting off who I am. Because maybe who I am now, through grace, is just the person who's doing the fighting off. And maybe the reason these "little" sins seem so much bigger is not that they're looming larger in my life, but that my eyesight (and my aim) is getting that much better.

Constant vigilance (1 Peter 5:8). Even in these deep-down, day-in-and-day-out trenches.