Over the past couple of years, I’ve had something creep up in my life and it has started to dominate my thoughts and image of myself. It’s the thought that I’ll never change, and because of that, I’m doomed to failure. I mean... look at my life. Is it not evidence that I simply can’t overcome the ins and outs of day-to-day life? That I keep repeating the same mistakes failing in business and thus an inability to properly provide for my family? That what I offer to Dawn is way less than what she deserves? Even when things go well it seems that I look more for the thing that is coming to destroy it than for the One who has come to bless it. This wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the second or third time of going through such things but here we are and it has been a life of ups and downs with little if any stability. At this moment in my life, I have so little fight left in me, to once again get up from the mat after being dealt yet another knockout blow.

Discouraged... I have not sought You. The enemy screams accusing me of what I am, which is failure. It yells to me “Give up.” My world shakes at the thunder of his voice. It’s in these darkest of times that Your love whispers to me... “I’ve got you”. Though I feel far from you and forgotten, the rock on which my life is built is secure. Yes, I’ve been knocked down but It’s only caused me to once again fall against You.

It’s here that the enemy is silenced and You use the encouragement of a friend to give direction. Watching them in their struggles remain steadfast, documenting faithfulness in the simplest of ways. I’m convicted, yet lifted. You deserve my best and with the example of a friend and your still small voice, I wake this morning excited to seek you. It’s been a while... yet it is so sweet and so familiar. It’s Your presence and it is precious. Years of failure wash away. The lie is washed away and replaced with truth which is, You’ve never left me, You have only held me.