Underground Exiles

Here’s God’s providential timing for you:

Last night I posted about really needing an empowering work of grace in my life. I feel like my struggle with anger and arrogance is sin; there’s no other way to put it.

This evening when I got home from the job, I had a delivery waiting for me. Unbeknown to me, a buddy had ordered a copy of The Mortification of Sin by John Owen for me. At the moment I’m struggling, a friend that has no clue what I’m dealing with sends me a book about murdering my sin.

Then I’m trying to stay up to date on the other blogs I like by way of my feedreader, and I found this post, by Dr. John Piper.

I’m beginning to suspect that God is trying to get my attention.

I really would appreciate ya’ll praying about this, because I think it’s important.

It’s come to my attention, again, that my passion comes across as anger. I freely admit that for the majority of my life I’ve been a pretty angry guy. I’ve been described more than once as being emotionally closed off; personally, I’d disagree, not because it isn’t accurate, but because it doesn’t even scratch the surface.

There is one emotion, and just one, that I can tap at will. It’s anger. I freely confess that I’ve been an angry, angry guy for the majority of my life. It’s extraordinarily hard for me to contact any emotion other than pure, unadulterated rage. Because of this, I bleed anger, even when I’m not angry.

Five years in the US Army didn’t make any of it better, it just makes it worse. It added an arrogance to my personality that isn’t winsome or appealing at all. Now, what you get when you talk to me, despite a lot of work on my part, is angry arrogance.

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So tonight will be my first night back at the CrossPoint small group here in my area. I’m a bit apprehensive about heading back after the break-up with my girlfriend. She won’t be there, but she’s part of the worship team at my church, so there will be an amount of weirdness, I’m sure.

In all of this, my reliance on Christ has increased exponentially. I’m not certain what His plan is in all of this mess, but I know that there is one, and I’m absolutely looking forward to being on the other side of it, so I can look back and see perfectly how He was shaping me.

I prayed harder last night than I can remember praying in several months, and wouldn’t stop until peace descended. God doesn’t often allow Himself to be caught hold of, at least by me, so I had every intention of bending His ear while He was amiable. I wouldn’t trade that relationship for any other relationship on the planet…

Truly, our God is great…