Thursday, July 24, 2008

Choose to choose


Everyday we are bombarded with temptations that look like enhancements or some better way or someone better. It seems that, as we grow in faith, we become more in tune with detecting the difference between a disquised temptation and a real blessing.

I know this much: I am learning, everyday, how to say no to small, confusing temptations.

It is still a bit startling whenever I realize that I can actually turn down a good, old confusing, irritatingly delicious temptation. It sometimes comes as a seemingly minor or trivial desire to buy something that is not even a need, but more like an unnecessary want; or to invite and ignite the lurking horns of office gossip and the luring ways of ignorant tolerance or its ally - the calculating, purposeful, know-it-all arrogance.

Really, His Wisdom embraces even in the littlest of details. The Holy Spirit nudges: It's not for you, my dear! Because you are His and not of this world...

Always, at the peak of it, one temptation, I ask: Who do I choose to be now, to become what I choose to be tomorrow and the next day after and the next day after? Who am I in Him, when all is said and done?
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basically Yours

Convivially, I should attend to all the comments and e-mails that I get when I tell everyone my most private thoughts and, oh, my weaknesses even. But there is a small chance that a lot of people will bump into my own quiet place.

Simply, I don't advertise it, I don't really share it with just anyone, I don't even tell my immediate family about it. I don't even talk about what I really do on a day-to-day basis, or what, quote-unquote, achievements in the bubble-world out there I snag, or how much I do for this and that which, ideal-worldly, merits accolade and, yes, some kind of vertical trophy or something thicker than a cardboard to stuff into some Office Depot certificate frame.

So what is the purpose of this? At first it was just my way of exercise: a sort-of platform to air out what bogs my head when I think, or when I want to say something to someone close but couldn't because it's not appropos at the time or that it's simply immature to even utter, or when I feel like the flow is within me and I want God to be in the know like I am in the know of what's going on in my head, or just to be in the same page with God, because as we all know we aren't always in the same page with the Almighty. It is my own quiet place to be me - suddenly, internally, vocally, artistically, whimsically, stupidly, spiritually - from all adverbial vantage points thesaurus has already, previously factored as a word.

Besides I just am done with the ex-crap, for lack of a better noun, that came with my in-and-ex-baggage I now refer to as pride. It was the stupidity of pride and the ingenuity of embellished prejudice that prevent one's lowest self to be thrown in the air and left to be picked up by a Power stronger and higher than itself. Holding tight to a configuration of self, or the idea of self, is plain stupid in my spiffed-up notion of wisdom, which happens to be the kind that originated from my Maker.

See, I am nobody special to a lot of human beings, but I am special especially to my Maker. This alone, now, gives me peace. He knows what I am doing at all times. I don't really have to announce to Him what my heart's desires are, because He knows me inside and out. But when I blog here, when I use this platform to cry out to Him, it's as if He is right there, ready with His keyboard, ready to respond and comment, or not respond and comment, ready to understand everything I say, ready to forgive me for the foibles that I say in-between-the-lines, ready to decipher the in-between-the-lines before they even come out of here. He is ready for me at all times. He always says, I'm basically yours, my love.

Many times I ask myself: Why do I bother or not bother? Why is it that I am compelled from the deepest recesses of my heart to talk to Him? I don't even seem to exist for any other reason, but to exist for Him. But there is where I could be wrong: He made me for something and that something is so close to me now, just as far as I could stretch my arm. I could smell the purpose. I could even feel the static that creates a whizzing noise when the thin spark implodes. It is here, my purpose. Tapping on my heart, it is here. I am to do what I am supposed to do.

You know what I say to my Maker? Now I say, I am basically Yours, my Maker! Do with me what You will for me to do.

--June 11, 2008, Year of New Beginnings