Why were the lost were so drawn to the Son of God, the "religious" so offended by Him?

Obvoius answer: The ones that had no problem seeing that they were messed up saw that Christ had something to offer. Those who didn't see what was messed up about themselves had no need for Christ.

I fit in the second category. In a weird way, I intellectually believed that I was in the first classification, and therefore found righteousness in that. With that, I placed myself in the second, "religious" group.

Confusing? I am a confused person.

I need Him now more than ever; I see how lost I really am.

"Who am I to call this suffering? I don't even do anything at all, and this is suffering? I am simply lazy."

These thoughts come during and after I live each day. How can I change? Will I ever live a life that's good enough to silence these accusations?

Change is an undergoing process. I will never live a life good enough to silence unrealistic standards. Sigh, this journey seems to grow more difficult with every setback. Some progress has been made, but sometimes I wonder if they ever makeup for all of the setbacks.

Must keep moving...

At moments I think the issues clear up, and I think that I can continue to do work. At extended periods of time, they do clear up, and I think I'm perfectly fine.

Then these times come again. The times that start with the nagging thoughts that I'm not keeping up with my schoolwork, that I'm mishandling my time, that I'm not doing anything right. It is true: at many times, I am lazy, and there is a whole lot of personal responsibility for my sin that's involved here. But in my weakness, I don't truly repent and let God's grace motivate me to change healthily. The nagging thoughts burgeon into condemning voices, saying that everything that I do with my time is a form of laziness. Condemning voices lead to dark times of depression, times in which I can't bring myself to enjoy anything. The voices are not literal or audible, so no, I'm not hearing things. Simply, these are fears and thoughts of condemnation that crowd my mind to the point where I can't even function as a student. I remind myself that these thoughts are not the authority, that Christ is the authority, that I am freed from sin, that God, out of His grace, is working to perfect me. I remind myself of God's love. These reminders fall to deaf ears, and any sense of will seems to weaken as I see myself starting to avoid the necessary work altogether. It comes to the point where the thoughts in my mind roar to a fever pitch, and I'm rendered helpless.

During college, I had a great accountability system that kept me in check and forced me to keep going. Now that I'm more on my own, this problem has escalated, and I realize that this problem is real and that it has never gone away with all these methods that people have told me to try, methods that I have told myself to do. "Just do it" doesn't work. "Exercise my will" doesn't seem to work. "Remind yourself of the Gospel" doesn't work, at least when I'm on my own. I've steeled my mind, I've written out schedules, but it seems that I've never tried hard enough. I still avoid doing school work, and I don't follow my schedule. All this feeds the condemnation machine that highlights that I'm trying too hard on my own and overthinking the issue.

I'm now at the point where I'm recognizing that even if I had accountability to help me get through it in the past, I never fully fixed the problem. I addressed and dismissed the symptoms because I was able to weather through them, but the fact that this pattern of events keeps returning shows that I need help. After much prayer, I'm finding that it's best if I seek professional accountability to help recognize and address the root(s) of the issues. I need to know what's really going on here, and how to address the problem so that if and when this happens again, I can fight this cycle with more effective means, fully guided by the hope won for me by Christ. I've avoided sinking into depression this time around, thanks to the prayers of trustworthy brothers and sisters in Christ, and ultimately because God in His grace has continually reminded me of His promises for my good held out for me in the Gospel.

After much prayer and thought, I am now looking into finding professional help. I can't do this alone. All the advice people give me these days has been the same advice I've heard, told myself, and tried for the past four years, but I'm still at the same place. It seems like the best next step into real life change.

Reality hit me this past year with:

1) Emotions are real and not to be taken lightly. Think I am in control? Think I have mastery over what I do? Think again.

2) I'm not strong.

3) Arrogance is the product of making ridiculously short-sighted assessments of oneself.

4) Same goes for depression at times. Well, initially, before it spirals out of control.

5) Preaching the Gospel to the self daily and believing it is harder than any other task in this world.

53 weeks left in my personal new year. God, in Christ's name, please free me and strengthen me to do what You want me to do, despite my weakness and failure.

I've gone through this before in my past. This time around, I don't want to try to face this alone again. I've told people that I trust will pray for me; not to depend on others too much, but simply as a measure of accountability.

After the last post, I had gone to ask for prayer from another person. After that was over, I turned off my computer and decided to go to bed, when it happened again. I reeled to the floor, clutching my head, the thoughts a lightning storm in my mind, paralyzing me. I fought as hard as I could, and it started to aabte. I am now at a normal level, but there's still the storm closeby. I can feel it, but it's suppressed right now.

The last time this happened was during my junior year, in February. It happened after the time I switched churches, and contemplated going to my new church's retreat.

What triggers these atacks? I think it starts off with a bunch of fears that escalate into something i can't even categorize. Is this schizophrenia?

Y'know what stinks? When I was trying to floss my lower left molars the floss broke, leaving a bit of floss between my molars. I tried to take it out with more floss, but every attempt broke each piece of floss. How am I going to get this out? Suggestions?

For those of you what I'm going through, I am sad to say that it's not getting any better. Ever since I got back from break, I go to my classes, but I find myself distanced further and further from my studies. Studies? What are studies? I really try to sit here and do it, but it just doesn't happen. My mind crackles with crowded thoughts and i almost physically feel a vice over my head. Or, I feel the lazy bug... that state of emotion that consists of this cloudy sensation that keeps repeating, "Don't do it."

I think to myself, "Christians shouldn't fail like this. They shouldn't be weak like this, because they have the ultimate confidence in life, their union with Christ. They fight to the extent of how firmly they believe." Then I see that I'm losing more battles. I have received so much exhortation and encouragement consisting of cures and actions I should take, but here I am, unable/unwilling to take action.

What the heck is wrong with me? Why can't I act? Why don't I act? I'm not even trying to figure out what is keeping me back, I just try to do it... but the same outcome. Nothing seems to work.

I get more reminders each day about how myopic and one-track minded I am. At times I lose control of the volume of my voice, my emotions, and my actoins when I try to express what's on my mind. It's humbling when someone has to tell me, "Hey, quiet down, we're in a public place." I've heard that line all of my life, and every time I vow that I'll be more careful with my thoughts.

Then, I hear it again.

This is what I am. But what can I do to compensate?

I've been thinking about a lot of things recently, but the following is the process for one of them. I will elaborate on it later.

1) My parents, and other Korean immigrants from their generation, have voiced their disgust over the anti-American sentiments of young people in Korea these days. They view it as hypocritical and bratty, because the young people didn't grow up in the country during and after the Korean War. To the older generation, the younger people are hypocritical because of their desire to speak English well, to the point of cutting the webbing under their tongues to magically eliminate Korean accents. They view this generation as bratty, because all these protests and opinions are biting the hands that fed them and created their free world for them in the first place.

2) These sentiments made me think about us, the first American-born generation of Koreans. Well, besides Hawaii, but they're a whole different world anyhow :-). It's been hitting me harder that I'm approaching the age of my parents when they were first thinking about emigrating to the United States. Did issues about cultural transmission ever run through their minds? What about us, and our kids, and our grandkids, and so on? Will we lose our sense of cultural identity?

If you went to a different country, and raised your kids there, they will undoubtably find their identity with that country, not with YOUR country. What would that feel like? Would it hurt? Would you feel pain because they don't want to identify everything that you are?

3) I think of Korean American Christians in my age group. I see the trends for ministries for this age group to always end up splitting from their immigrant parents' churches. I see the trends toward 'multi-ethnic churches' as ideal because they grew up in a multi-ethnic environment, and view going to a Korean demographic ministry as narrow-minded.

I ask: what about the future? What about your kids, about their kids? What will they think of their Korean roots?

Summary: this is all the background for a future post. Just trying to organize my thoughts here. :-)