the road less travelled...

so, i think i took a brave step last night. i was honest. for perhaps the first time in over a year. i think i have had a slowly growing understanding, and now i have finally identified what has been going on in my heart. i don't think a year ago i could have articulated what the real issue was, in fact last night may have been the first time i could. here it is: i am at war. there is this battle going on between a very small, quiet part of me and this larger much louder more dominant part. the smaller part wants me to choose jesus, to choose my own sacrifice, my own death really. then there is this other part that only wants me to choose me. to give in to my own desires and wants and needs. this part acknowledges the theoretical truth of jesus, but doesn't want to serve him. the truth of it all is that i have never, in my whole life, been so close to choosing to turn away from jesus. and not in a loud way, shaking my fist and yelling at god. but in a much quieter, apathetic way. i have this picture of myself in a river, right on the edge of a giant waterfall. i know that the way to life is to struggle to swim upstream, against the current. and it's harder, and so exhausting, and it seems like there is no pleasure, only life. and it doesn't really seem worth it. and the other choice is to choose death. to let go and give in to my flesh, stop fighting and go over the waterfall to certain death. and it will be fun and pleasurable for a moment, but it will not end well. both choices terrify me. to turn away from the truth that i know or to run into his arms, but die to my own desires and pleasures. you know how you hear about those people who do those incredible things to survive in the face of almost certain death. the guy who cut his own leg off with a pocket knife. or the people who eat their dead friends. even just the people who didn't give up hope. i have always known that i am not one of those people. my hope does not endure through all things. in fact my hope is one of the things that falls away first. i do not have the will to cut my flesh to save my life. so how is this choice any different? if i turn to jesus, maybe he won't ask me for much yet. but tomorrow, or in a week, or a year or ten years, he will ask me to do things and give up things and to put myself to death. i know this. and this is what makes this choice so hard. i am counting the cost. and it is so high. maybe too high. i don't know. i was asking jesus to make this choice easier for me to make. to make it easy for me to choose him. and i felt like he said that the ease of this choice is directly proportional to the depth of the choice and the commitment to it. if it's an easy choice, it will also be a shallow one, easy to turn my back on later. if i can make this choice even though it is so very hard, then it will be enduring. there will be a depth there that will be harder to turn back from. it's hard for me to pray for my own death, but i am trying. maybe you, whoever you are that are reading this, can pray for my death, and my life. thanks.