Aug 26 2008
State of the Union (Summer 2008)
I thought it would be important to give everyone a State of the Union Address. The union between myself and the creator is the union I am talking about.
To put things simply, the state of the union is stressed but the bonds are extremely strong and unbreakable. God has promised this to us in scripture. The stress is a mixture of God trying to refine me and me being reluctant. My old self still thinks he is in charge of my life and sometimes it convinces in weak moments that he is correct. God has given me new life and I sometimes forget that is what he has done for me.
1. Some of the things I have trouble with are sexual temptation through pornography. This one has followed me for a long time. I am a Very Happily Married Man, but porn still try to keep its grip on me. This is sad to say, but I have found that Satan uses this one a lot with other Christian men as well. It is a hard sin to get rid of because it can be done when no one else is around and IT SEEMS harmless in that no one is directly getting hurt, but the side affects are extremely dangerous. The more people look at porn and support it, the more the industry grows and causes more and more men and women to stumble. Since more porn is needed for the demand, more and more women and men are drawn into the industry to perform. I will not go any further than this right now, but the cyclical increasing nature of porn is huge, and I have not even talked about the effect on my own relations with my wife and family. All in all it is not good. If you read this post today please say a quick prayer for strength for me and anyone else dealing with these issues.
2. Financial issues are also an issue that seems to keep creeping up on me. This is mostly a fairly familiar story of not living within the means of what we have, but it also goes a little deeper than that. My last few years have been a real struggle in that I own my own business and have had a very large deal that was supposed to happen 4 years ago and it didn’t. Instead, things have held it up and I am still waiting. I have wrongly let this keep me from doing other things in the meantime. I have tried to earn money form home on the internet and have been scammed a few times with no results. This is a strange mix for me as I know God has given me the passion for doing this kind of work, but I have yet to find what EXACTLY he wants me to do. I am thinking this site may have something to do with me figuring it out. In the meantime, my big deal is supposed to be coming into the final stages within the next few weeks. This is exciting, but I have accumulated so much debt waiting on it that when it does finish it will seem a little deflating to think about what could have been.
3. Both 1 and 2 above have put some less than desirable stress on my relationship with my wife and family. My wife has been extremely supportive during this time through prayer and other ways. I do not feel I have been the Man of God in our relationship during these times.
Now that some of the confessions are done with here are some of the praises that are much more fun to talk about.
1. My Family…what can I say other than that God has blessed me extremely with my family. I have 2 boys. One is 4 and the other is about 18 months old. Both are real blessings. I know I can do a better job teaching them about the only God and Savior, but even in my failings God has done what he does all the time in peoples lives. My oldest son ask great questions and seems to know that both my wife and I love God.
We have a great support group outside of our immediate family in that God has also blessed me with great extended family. They all have thier quirks but don’t we all?
2. My friends…Once again God has surrounded me and IS surrounding with quality friends that really care about me and I really care about them.
3. My Church has been wonderful and I look forward to everytime I can be around other church members to sharpen me, and hopefully I do the same for them despite my weaknesses. God is in charge so it can definetely be done.
This is a very generalised “State of the Union”, but I beleive it accurately depicts where I am right now. Feel free to add any comments or even tell us about your “State of the Union”.
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