Day 28: Interrupted by Deliverance

I'm writing daily this month on being interrupted by grace.  Learn more and join in here.

The day is almost gone and I'm spent.  It was a good day so it's a good kind of exhaustion, but man, it's exhaustion nonetheless.

This morning I was interrupted by grace while facing the reality of my proud, competitive heart.  I have strange reactions to status updates and conversations on Facebook - like when one friend thanks a mutual friend for doing or saying the right thing.  I feel suddenly so insecure and jealous that I was not the one to have done that and what I said or did (or not) must have been "wrong" or at least inadequate.

Sure sounds like 8th grade stuff, doesn't it?  I get stuck there a lot.

These feelings of jealousy, insecurity, and fear come just like that.  There's no real thought behind them; they're suddenly right in the front of my brain.  And I tend to feel awful about this, because I know how ridiculous it is.  Today I decided to think it all through a little.

I've come to the conclusion that the enemy is at work in these things.  He so strongly desires to drive a wedge between me and my circle of accountability, friendship, and encouragement.  He loves to see me give into the temptation to obsess about meaningless Facebook status updates in which I'm not included, so that I'm drawn away from what is good, true, noble, lovely, and the like.

Lately I've been pondering the last petitions in the Lord's Prayer:  give us our daily bread, forgive us our sins, lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from the evil one.

I need to confess my sins to the Lord; I need to ask Him to transform my proud, jealous heart.  But I also need to pray, fervently, that He would lead me not into temptation, and deliver me from the evil one.

He sure is evil.

But God, well, He's good.