I mentioned in a previous post that I was in a process of a change in my life, in the process of a new beginning.  If you've been reading my blog for long you may remember the posts I wrote long ago entitled Listening to the Voice of Truth (the four-part series of blog entries are on pages 9 and 10 of my blog).  For the last several months I have ashamedly been personally struggling once again to hear that Voice.  You see, when I wrote those entries, I may have failed to listen to emphasizing that learning to listen to Truth is a daily battle; just when I think I've got it down pat, satan lurks around like a lion waiting for the perfect opporutnity to invade your very thoughts once again.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour ~ 1 Peter 5:8

Somewhere in the past months, he did just that, invaded my thoughts once again.  I won't go into all the details of the lies that I started to consume; but they lead me down a dark path, a path of bad choices and old negative thinking habits, and landed me drowning in a well of negativity filled with self condemnation, and the belief that I was no longer worth God's time.  Gees, you'd think I would have learned by now!  But like I said, daily battle...daily battle.

As a homeschooling mother I have done great things for my children, but I also mess up daily, and somewhere along the lines my perfectionist personality started to believe that God had finally had enough of my messing up and had abandoned me.  The truth was that in my wrong turn on the path of lies, it was me that had inadvertantly turned from Him.  Once again, I cried out to the Lord like a child in the dark.

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." ~ James 4:10

Before long, I opened my devotional book and turned the next page to find this Scripture:

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." ~ Romans 8:1-4

Hmmm, there's no condemnation for me?  Wait, that's what Christ did for me already, He paid for all my messing up long ago, it's done.  He paid for my messing up yesterday, today, and all my tomorrows.  I'm set free, so what am I doing back in these chains!?  I'm going to mess up, He knew that, but so long as I'm seeking and am in Christ Jesus, my sinful nature is history!  I don't have to let it bound me and condemn me, I am being made "new" by Him every second.

I am challenged every day, all day, to make right choices when teaching and interacting with my children.  Yes, sometimes I'll mess up, even daily, but I will move on and continue to grow in Him.  I will try to never again underestimate satan's relentlessness; his constant desire to cloud and confuse my thoughts.  But even more importantly, I will never underestimate God's power to forgive.