Living Beyond the Moment

Good news, everyone: I have been convicted of something that I have been doing wrong. I am really very grateful for this, and though it is troubling to see something within myself that I am ashamed of, I am so glad to be able to begin to see it clearly. 

Here it is: I live to make myself, and those I love, feel happy. 

In some ways this is not such a very bad thing. I love to encourage people and to cheer them up when times are hard. But too often I resort to distracting them from their troubles rather than trying to help them work through the problem at hand. I do this to myself, too. Rather than dealing with things that need to be addressed, I distract myself with friends, music, books, movies, writing, Youtube, candy, cooking. I live to feel good, and often I desire little more for my friends than for them to feel good, too.

Which is so shallow and short-sighted. Of course what I should be living for is seeing God's will done in my life. The problem is, God's will for my life does not always make me happy. My sinful, selfish flesh resents everything God wants for me. Too often I let the desires of my short-sighted flesh overrule my wish to do what is right. I need to take the reigns away from my emotions and give them to God instead. Because obviously I am not strong enough to resist temptation on my own. I've been trying to do that for years, and it just doesn't work.