valleys and mountains

It has been an incredibly long time since I have wanted to write anything down. I have recently finished up with school with a Bachelor's of Science degree with an emphasis on chemical dependency counseling. I haven't been to inspired lately. I feel lazy, apathetic and unresponsive to my surroundings. The environment doesn't provide the same zealous thrill that it once possessed. I am trying to hard and forgetting a major ingredient.

To simply love God and love people with the same spontaneity as a child. I am a child of God but now feel like an adult. I want child-like faith. I am also about the performance and ignore the brevity of children of the first days I became a christian. I have been softened by the books about social justice and human advocacy. I am learning about the hunger pangs of the world while I eat a foot long sub and waste water washing dishes. I forget about the key essentials in this life and that is living it. Since I finished school I have been a lazy television zombie. I try to convince myself to read or clean but lack the motivation. It always come back to that "m" word. The varying inspiring that gets a couch potato motivated, I get small glimpses of "do it for Jesus" or "if you study the Bible more..she'll like you more." It even goes beyond spiritual.

Paul writes in the Corinthians about how are bodies are compared to temples and that we were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) and yet I am treating my as an amusement park or a demolition derby. I hate my physical appearance and justify my laziness and self-image by the outside of who I am. I want change but lack the motivation to change. I use the same excuse when it comes to being a follower (not just a believer) of Jesus Christ. It's not about me though and my personal conquest to find just that....purpose. It goes beyond this selfish self-hatred and I no longer have to isolate myself from the sins of my life. I suffer from all the seven deadly sins.

They blend nicely like a sinful spice rack in a chefs kitchen. I am in a valley and I have the ability to hide my true feelings behind a Freudian defense mechanism that makes it easier for me to cope with myself. I am among the many who fear closeness because of the underlining equation that "if you really knew me you would not be friends with me." To me it happens with a lot of people. It is beneath the surface and exists within us from womb to tomb....sin. A deadly and filthy three letter word that is cunning and deceptive. It exists in all of us and we need to repent and turn the page on issues that destroy us. I'm not going to point the finger at others for their sins and cast the first stone here. I can't imagine God has way of minimizing or prioritizing sins. He hates all acts of sins and we reek of it. I don't know much about sin but I no that I am no longer living a lie that I tell myself repeatedly. That I'm the most important person in my life. I'm not and i need to be defined and reminded to serve others and I will feel better. For the longest time I thought about my pain from my past and spent the last few months as graduation came and went that through Christ I can achieve great things and need to remain teachable. My grandfather told me that he is in his seventies and he hasn't even come close to "accomplishing the answers" but he has faith. I'm tired, its late and I have to pray.
I love you reader!
Grace and peace
Daniel C. Massaglia