Just so that everyone knows, I'm a huge hypocrite!

I just kind of felt like I needed to say that. OK, so now going on to my blog entry of the day:

So normally I walk around thinking I’m a pretty good person, my goal in life being for everyone to like me and think well of me. I wanted to be that little old lady down the street that is always happy and carefree, that everyone speaks well of, that women visit for advice, and little children visit for cookies. But reading my bible, it says that I’m to daily take up my cross and follow Jesus. Well, that means I am to actively work towards being in a place where I’m in pain, working hard, being scorned and rejected by those I love, and am expecting a painful death. That’s not exactly my own personal game plan. Or at least it wasn’t. God said my goal in life should be to love Him, and love others, and I guess that’s pretty different than the one I concocted for myself. So now my goal is slowly changing. I want to be able to love God more than loving myself and my own personal desires to be well liked. I want to love others and not have it matter if they love me back.

But that’s pretty difficult. Pretty much impossible really. And the fact that I’ve been a Christian for most of my life and this is still so much of a problem doesn’t bode well for me either. I suppose I’ve been going about this whole “changing myself” thing incorrectly. I have believed that since I’m a Christian, the Holy Spirit will change me without much of my own effort, but I’m starting to believe that more energy on my part is required. God asks us to love him. That’s not a warm fuzzy, that’s a verb. I’m a pretty lazy person, so this part is going to be hard. I don’t like working on myself. It makes me humbled, depressed, uncomfortable, and it requires so much work to constantly be on guard with what I say and think. It requires so much activity! But I know God, somehow, will get me through this. And if I truly do love him, than I won’t mind working hard to do something I know he has asked me to do. And I know that if I do try, then He will be there to help me along the way.