Fighting for dear life.

As I type this I sit outside on the verge of shivering from the cold. Spring had taken over as summer eagerly loomed....but late winter lashed out a final chilly breathe so as not to be forgotten quite yet.

It rained today in splotches, just enough to dirty our windows and fill the air with that smell...the smell of wet dirt and asphalt...that isn't necessarily pleasant, but still well received because of what it means to people living in a barren land.

And now it's cooled off dramatically, but I find less joy in the experience than I'd like, but I"m unsure why.

It's a quiet night where I'm stationed... and I watch little rabbits scurrying through an empty field...a small plot of sonoran desert sandwiched between a newly renovated business plaza and a suburban community. Industrialization is a strange thing when you consider it... We plow over acres of God's beautiful land to build odd looking structures in their stead (and everyone has to have a piece of their own) only then we recreate an artificial, manageable version of what once was to decorate a front and backyard... and then we retreat often times to the mountains, forests, the ocean...again to the natural, the natural we keep wiping away.

I've been trying to keep my head above water and the weeks have been quite difficult... and over and over again I find that I continue to forget the rudiments of my faith.

And I passively allow the world to convince me that I am incomplete, or inadequate or missing out on some portion of life... And it's pretty silly when you think about it...to allow this upside down world that much influence.

I think if the devil ever decided on a career change he might do well to seriously consider a job in marketing. The lies, the poison is all so cleverly packaged... so are the assaults. And that is one thing I've come to learn. That I have to be vigilant at protecting myself from these, at protecting truth.

You see, through a bible study, a church service, a scripture or the latest best-selling Christian literature I may experience profound moments of epiphany... and it feels like a veil has suddenly been lifted, the truth resonates deeply within and I get excited and intensely hopeful all at once... but through the course of days, weeks and months...before I have realized it...the rich truth has been snuffed out and bartered for a cheap falsity. And I can't even pin down exactly when I went wrong...or how... it just sort of happens... and I find myself again going about things as before... replacing God with the hopes
of finding a mate or a successful career or what have you... my demigods.

And so I feel that we must guard our hearts as the Proverbs advise, above all else.... For truth is ever sacred, but so easy to lose especially in a world of smoke and mirrors...