In which I blog to myself.

Okay, so I think I'd better clarify a few things. First off, the actual quote is not "idiot" it's "insanity" (although the two are very closely related =D ) Second of all....I guess..hmm. I got a lot of comments from people about how I shouldn't be degrading myself or labeling myself as a certain way. That's not really what I'm doing...just identifying a certain type of behavior that God has convicted me of.

Idiot: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

I was thinking. How do we expect to live lives for Jesus, changed lives, lives of radical surrender and love for Him if we're not willing to give anything up? If we're not willing to stop doing what we are doing and start doing what He wants us to do? If we continually keep the same habits, same ideas, refusing to let go of the sin that keeps hold of us....will we ever get different results? Will we ever be changed? Of course not.

I like to plan. I like to plan a lot. But I'm not so good at sticking to that plan. (But I'm really good at the planning.) So I plan, I plan, and I say, okay, I'm going to do this at this time so that I can do this next and then this....but never actually get it done. Yet I still expect that "this time will be different" or "I'll get it right this time".

I've been doing this since I was 7 years old. (Like I said, I'm pretty good at planning.)

I cling to perfection, to thinking I can do it my way, that if I just try one more time, I can get it right on my own.

What?

Maybe Hannah needs to hear this again.

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

Or the harsher one, that cuts a lot deeper,

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Really, Hannah?

The only way we can live radical lives for God is if we let Him change us, if we let go of our own plans, the things we stick to like glue the things we want to keep and hold onto forever, little things we try over and over again in attempt to do it ourselves, saying "God, let me try just one more time. I think I can get it this time." I cling to things that are the same. I don't like to let things I do go because if I do, it makes me vulnerable, and it makes me disorganized, and it makes me the weaker one.

But...I am the weaker one. God is the stronger one. He is the one whose plan actually matters. He is the one who can bring things to pass...not me. Since when did my agenda work? It didn't work when I was 7 and it doesn't work when I'm 17, and it won't work when I'm 27 or 57 or 97.

We can't live the lives we live in sin and expect that God will just give us what we want, or that we'll have a nice life, or that God will give us big, important responsibilities. We can't say we've been changed by God, that we're living our lives for Him when we refuse to even let Him change the way we think and live.

I have to allow Him to break down the walls I hide behind, to radically change the way I live, for there to be fruit.

The ideal, the concept of change, of doing things for God's glory is so easy and nice to imagine and get excited about. But it's such a completely different thing to allow God to work that in my life.

By the aforementioned definition, I have the habits of one who is an idiot. Or insane. Or however you call it.

Oh, Praise God for His endless grace.