a promise

i'm in the norman circa lab, starting this four page literary analysis that is due tomorrow. well, at least the first draft is. in the midst of making something out of nothing, i started to think about my feet.


i like my feet.


as with most things with me, i want to do what is healthy for my body, including wearing proper footwear for the arch support that i need. from about half-way through my summer internship with gcm in tallahassee, i tossed my old sandals due to the malt vinegar/cold egg smell rising from them and i quickly set my eyes on a pair of rainbow's. they are all over campus, everyone has a pair, so i figure there must be something great about these sandals.


i made myself want them.


for christmas my grandparents gave me some money, enough to buy a pair, so i did when i got back to gainesville. and here i sit, a month or so later, looking at my sandals. the same sandals that everyone else has. and you know what?


i don't even care about them.


i don't. i mean, sure they are great to walk in and it's nice to be able to wear them in february, but at the end of the day, i just don't value them. and this is disappointing because my eyes and heart are so pathetic that i expected my soul to be satisfied by something as trivial and temporal as a pair of pop-shoewear. i actually, honestly expected myself to find some amount of redeption in an object that can't even compare to the flesh and blood that was spilt for me. i've tasted the Lord, i have seen His goodness in my life and in others, especially when it comes to raising support for missionary work, and yet, i believed in my heart that this would make me happy. oh the vicious cycle my flesh runs in!


and it makes sense.


it makes sense how we can spend nine billion dollars in one day because it's the best day of the year for sales and deals. it makes sense how americans can buy a new computer every two years because the old one has become 'obsolete' and they are somehow lacking in their value as an american citizen and consumer if they don't have the latest, shiny gadget. the iphone? hello, my heart yearned for that thing. YEARNED! what kind of man am i? reminds me of this verse i found last night:


'surely i was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me' -psalm 51:5


i've never been good, i've never wanted what was right or true or just on my own. oh Lord, how great is the work that You've done in me? i don't think i will ever know.


so i need to get back to this paper, because that glorifies God just as much as anything else. brothers and sisters, please please PLEASE do not let your flesh trick you into believing that the next shirt or the next hard drive or the next Vera Bradley bag will ever fill you, to the slightest extent. not like Christ, not like His grace, not like His blood.


oh simplicity, may i come implore thee?