45 Days w/ God - Day 8

This is the 8th day of my time off/time with God. I have been resting that is for sure. Most of that rest has been nice, but some has been horrible. I 'relaxed' yesterday with one of my favorite past times, video games. I sat down and played The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I picked this game up several months ago and had never had the time to get into it. I finally decided to crack the game open and play some. I got maybe 6 hours into playing total (not in one sitting) and realized how dark I felt inside. I had let the darkness of the game start to inhabit my mind. I let hours of my life slip away with each corner and heart container.

I want to say that video games are not bad. Many people play video games and live healthy lives. This just took me back to the times when I would play games for 12-18 hours a day and do nothing. When video games consumed me. It haunted me the rest of the day on Sunday. It took some scripture and my wife to cleanse the darkness I felt. I realized, like other things from my past, video games needed to go away and not come back.

The sermon at church yesterday was spot on. Ben nailed it on the head and I left encouraged. I saw what I used to call 'rest' did to me after this. Today hasn't been much better. I spent the morning listening to worship and even tried to listen to a Rich Nathan sermon while working at work. I feel dark inside. I let the fear/stress/unbalance I was feel manifest itself.

As most know I have been trying to eat better. This is one of my 'big 2 sins'. I ate what I brought with me for breakfast and lunch and was doing well. Until my drive home. I stopped at Wendy's and consumed somewhere around 1500-2000 calories would be my best guess. I ate a full days meal because I felt bad for myself. I needed a 'release' something to make me feel better. Only this device made me feel worse, much worse.

I am having troubles with self control even with less going on in my life. Now I realize that it's not really all the stress and lack of time that drives me to do things I don't want to. I just choose to do the wrong thing and blame them on the stress. The fundamental shift needed in my heart and mind is much larger than I previously thought. The issues are deeper than time management and priority management.

I prayed last night to God. I read about David being made king over all of Israel. I have made at least one HUGE determination in this first week spiritually. A SPIRITUAL REALM EXISTS AND IS ACTIVE IN OUR PHYSICAL WORLD. This became very clear to me yesterday. I experienced the presence of God via the Holy Spirit and the presence of demon's and sin via old habits. It's not to say that I didn't see it or experience it in other ways, but those stick out. I an honestly say that fear/worry is all but settled in me now. I still don't understand eternity, heaven, the spiritual world, what exactly will happen after I die, but I do know it is very real. I thank God for this because I believe He is working on me and showing me who He is in new ways. I also thank Satan for validating that he is real. I feel like knowing there is a Satan in very important. The tricks and slumps he puts you in and tempts you with validate how strong God is. Just reading the Bible calmed the uneasy spirit that was in my yesterday. It was AWESOME!

I still feel bad right now due to the amount of food I ate, but I know God is working in me and freeing me slowly but surely from these chains. I just pray that I keep looking to Christ. That I keep pressing in as this is getting harder every day. I just want to break free and love God every day. I want to share Christ with others. I want to live my life as a sacrifice to the God who saved me.