If I Make It To Heaven, I May Be As Bloody As Hell...

Currently Reading: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Currently Listening To: Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens

Well...
Here I am, sitting here, and I just sort of feel like writing...
Some days it seems like I am on the right track, doing a pretty good job, pretty close to God, all that jazz...
Then other days, I feel like I have so far to go, and that I and so spiritually immature and anemic...
(NOTE: This is not a "boo-hoo" blog or me complaining - it's really kind of positive, so don't read this and hear me agonizing with a sense of desperation)

I woke up this morning and decided to walk to the store in our apartment complex to buy some candy for my homeroom, and I just started singing "Center" by Charlie Hall...
I was just kind of making it my prayer, altering the lyrics to make it personal...
"Christ, be the center of my life, be the place I fix my eyes"
Then I started wondering the reason why I pray, the reason why I talk to God, the reason I want to be close to God, the reason why I try and communicate with Jesus...
I couldn't help but wonder if I do it because I feel like it is something I need to do to be a good person/Christian, or if I am doing because I truly want to be close to the One who gave up their life for me, so that I could have the ability and freedom to be in a relationship with them...
Donald Miller talks about how (and I am paraphrasing) grace is an invitation to relationship, and the rejection of grace is pretty much like a slap in God's face...
Also, John Ortberg speaks of grace as being viewed as a way of life...
Everything we are given every day can be seen as an outpouring of the mystery that is God's grace...

Hopefully, with God's grace (haha), I can somehow better understand that mysterious gift that I have been given, and operate joyfully and freely in this gift rather than being bogged down by the rules and laws I place on myself...