.My Sickness.

I am Daniel Morrow, and I am people pleaser. I love people. I live my life to put a smile on your face. I live my life to make you laugh. I live my life to make you think I am a great person. I long to be wanted and accepted and I hate failure.

The devil knows this and he uses whatever grip he can find to cut me deep. Recently I have been in a battle with my thought life to fight the insecurity I have hidden deep within my soul. And it seems that every time I see a ray of hope, I read something, hear something or assume something that destroys how I see myself. The tongue is a weapon and my self-confidence often hinges on the words spoken around me.

I am addicted to compliments and reassurance; they have become the drug that gets me going, the buzz that gets me high and the crutch that I use for support. Sometimes I feel like I cannot be healed because it seems every time I start to win the battle, I meet a hardship that takes me two steps backwards.

Well tonight I have come face to face with an ultimatum. My confidence cannot hinge on what others might be saying behind my back, how people react in front of me or how I think people will accept me on any given day. By relying on others for all my joy, I am holding broken people to an unfair standard that will only end in heartbreak and frustration. Truth be told, my love for people and desire to be liked should be rubbish compared to the overwhelming glory, honor and desire of knowing Christ my Savior in a more intimate way every single day.

My God knows me better than anyone else on this planet. He knows my success and my failure. He knows my darkest thoughts. He knows the number of hairs on my head for crying out loud. Yet He loves me unconditionally and that kind of intimacy cannot be replaced.

So starting tonight I am done looking to the critics to define me as a person. I am who I am because God made me that way and I have to maximize the gifts He has bestowed upon me while offering my weaknesses up to Him fresh every morning. His glories are new every morning and I long to taste and see that He is good in every relationship and situation. I choose to focus on the One who loves me and is working all things for good.

When I fully submit to His will, He will take care of me. God is good.

Love God. Love People. Spread the Hope.

DBM

The free gift is not like the trespass...

Over the past few days I cannot get over the fact that I seemingly forget the importance and power of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Often I do not live my life as a man who has been set apart to proclaim Good News of my Lord and Savior. 


It is overwhelming to consider the deep, passionate, divine love with which my Savior loves me. Not a day goes by that I do not mess up royally and yet He still pursues me with a crazy love that words cannot contain. 


I am a sinner, doomed to dust, depraved from birth. And yet Jesus Christ took the weight of my every sin on His shoulders on Calvary. My thoughts are aptly summed up in one of my favorite hymns, "I Stand Amazed in the Presence":




I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene
And I wonder how He could love me,
A sinner condemned, unclean.

How marvelous, how wonderful
And my song shall ever be.
How marvelous, how wonderful
Is my Savior's love for me. 




My Savior offered His life as a free gift for my life. And praise be to God that the free gift is not like the trespass. 


So I stand amazed in His presence. Yearning for Him. Longing to walk ever closer with Him.








"But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. " Romans 5:15


DBM