Spiritually Struggling

I am a born-again Christian.  I go to church.  I have faith.  Yet I struggle with being right with the Lord and giving him some of my time.  I am a Christian but I don't always act like it.  I do go to church but not nearly as often as I should.  I do have faith but it's lacking.  Having a relationship with Christ, I need to be in church, worshiping my Savior and being fed with His Word; I should want to go, not struggle every Sunday to get up and go.  There was a time in my life when I couldn't wait for the next Sunday or Wednesday to go to church.  I want to get back there.  But life gets in the way because I don't prioritize my time.  I should be in my Bible everyday, soaking up His Word, thirsting after it.  We should be having devotions as a married couple.  Our marriage is founded on Christ but right now it's off-centered by not putting Him first.

Like with Bible studies, I start off devotional time gung-ho but it never fails that time becomes less and less often and eventually, not at all.  I'm hungry and thirsty but I'm not eating and drinking up what He's offering.  Why do I starve myself?  It reflects in a poor attitude, shorter temper, thinking less before I speak; I pray for Him to help me with it but I usually try to do it myself instead of taking the help that I'm seeking and being offered.  As a Christian, I need to be living like Christ daily and when I don't, it reflects poorly on Him.  As a Pastor's wife, not fulfulling the duties that come with that role reflects poorly on my husband.  As a Mommy, my lacking spritual walk will filter down to him (and I absolutely don't want that to happen), as well as affect my parenting choices.

The harder I try to do something on my own, the more I fail and the more I feel disappointed in myself.  I can't get through to my stubborn self that I will always fail when I look to myself.  If I look inward, it negatively reflects outwardly and I fall downward.  If I look upward, it positively affects me inwardly which reflects outwardly.  Whichever way I choose to look, it will impact my character, whether for the better or for the worse.  It's up to me which way I choose to look.

As of yesterday, a close friend and I chose to pray for each other in specific needs and struggles and to be accountable to each other.  With expanding our relationship in this manner has come certain openness and vulnerability.  But that's to be expected; our honesty and openness allows us to lift each other up in prayer more specifically.  Sure, I pray about these things myself but I take comfort in knowing that she is lifting up in prayer these very same things on my behalf, as I will for her.  Matthew 18:19-20 comes to mind:  "'When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there.'" (The Message).  While we physically are in two different places, are hearts are in the same place.  I pray that this will strengthen our respective spiritual walks with the Lord as well as our earthly friendship.

I need to remember to take things one day at a time, set small goals at first.  My personal experience with setting huge goals for myself and a lot of them at once is that I will almost always fail in my intentions.  I need to start small and build my way up.  It will be a long, slow journey but one that is worth taking in order to grow closer to my Savior.