Personal Inventory and Life Audit

Before you read this post, I highly reccomend you read my previous post.  Beginning with the Intro if you have not already.  This post will make more sense if you do.

     Taking a personal inventory and life audit is a great way to determine your worth.  At least that’s what I thought.  Isn’t that what you are supposed to do when trying to determine if your life is worth living? 

     So let the inventory and audit begin.  Is there a common theme of being bullied?  Yes.  Has the bullying gotten worse as time went on? Yes.  Does anyone really want me around?  Not really.  Is there anyone who sticks up for me? Not that I can think of.  However, I do have a couple of friends who will say “sorry that happened, they’re just a jerk”.  Do they ever stick up for me when it’s happening?  Not once that I can think of.  So do I really matter to these friends?  Probably not, otherwise they would stand up for me.  Is anyone out there encouraging me?  My parents, but they have to I am their son.  Do teachers notice me?  Not really, I can skip class and never get caught.  How well am I doing in school?  Failing, yep absolutely failing and I don’t even care.  My GPA was as low as 1.57, I’d say that equals failure.  Am I good at anything?  I think so, but coaches never see it.  I love soccer, but I can’t even make the travel team.  Why, because I don’t have the popular name.  After all, some of the kids already said that I wouldn’t make it because “nobody wants you on this team”.   Track; that’s where I know I can make it, well maybe not.  I went to the tryouts and kept up with the fastest kid on the field.  I just knew I was in, guess again….Not.  Would my parents be proud if they knew what I was really doing?  Never.  Problems with alcohol? Yes.  Have I failed anyone?  I’m sure my parents, and definitely Tina and Gary.  They are both dead and I never tried or did anything to help or stop any of it.  What if I had listened to Tina, what if I had discouraged Gary from drinking alcohol?  Is there any reason what so ever for me to continue living?  Surfing, I love to surf.  But then again, I am pretty much alone.  I do take my younger cousin on occasion.  I just hope I don’t mess his life up and send him down the wrong path.  He needs me.  Actually, he doesn’t need me.  He needs someone much better than me.  So is there any good reason to keep living.  That is a stupid question, of course not.  Besides, nobody really cares about me. Most people don’t even notice when I am not around.  If they want to hang out with me, it is usually because they want something.  Are friends encouraging me to be a better person? Yes and no; really, we just do stupid stuff together and I’m definitely not making their lives any better.   Has God ever done anything I told him to do?  Not that I can think of.  Has anything I have tried brought peace and hope into my heart where I want it the most? Never.  Am I worse off than when I was before?  Most definitely!   I have been picked on as long as I can remember.  I’ve been told countless times, “nobody likes you, nobody wants you, you don’t matter, nobody cares, and you will never amount to anything”.   I am a failure as a friend.  I am more depressed than I have ever been.  My life is a downward spiral of failure, rejection, being used, addiction, depression, and messing up other people’s lives.  There is not one person I can think of outside of my family that even cares if I am alive.  If God really needed me, He would have done something to stop all this stuff.  I’ve gone to Him in church, in prayer, in reading a Bible, in scientology, through Buddha, and even by meditation.   Have I found Him or even experienced Him even once?  Not that I can remember.  Is there anything I can do to make my life better?  I don’t know anymore.  I have tried so many things and nothing seems to work.  Is there anything that can make this pain go away? Death, if I am dead then I won’t hurt anymore.  Dead is dead right?  So now, how do I do it? How do I find the courage to finally end this miserable life that I think I am in?  Courage, I don’t have even an ounce of it in my soul.  I am even a coward.

     I hope you get the point of what I was trying to show you in that last paragraph.  In my own delusional mind; I convinced myself that life sucked, God did not care, I did not matter to anyone, and I pretty much was ruining other people’s lives.  I had no opportunity or even the talent to succeed.  If God really had a plan for me and needed me, everything would be different.  God, if He even existed made a mistake when He made me.  That pretty sums up my deranged thoughts and the lies satan wanted me to believe. 

     If I had only known and understood what Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  I never knew that God really did have plans for me.  What I didn’t know then, my biggest problems were I allowed others to define who I was, I tried to define God and who He was by my standards, and I pursued my own plans.  My plans were doomed for failure because of these problems. 

 

     Carri and I at a Castle in Budapest Hungary after our first foreign mission trip to Romania.  Our oldest daughter Mackenzie was with us as well, she wass taking the picture.  I never would have ever thought that I would serve the Lord in foriegn lands, let alone right here at home.  The Lord does have plans for you and they are beyond your imagination.

 

May my life be the proof and evidence of His love