Down But Not Out In SD

Sometimes you have to hit the bottom before you wake up. That feels pretty much what my life has been about over the past six months, hitting that bottom. And believe me when I say it's not much fun being down there. I haven't blogged in awhile but have decided to once again step up to my keyboard(eh, well sit down at my laptop) and start once again. One thing I have realized about the blogging, it really doesn't matter if others read, who blogs are most helpful to is the people typing them, if we allow them to be. It is a good time to be introspective and see what exactly our thought life and minds are dwelling on, and if we can be open in a blog setting then also what we have been spending(or wasting) our time doing.

So now that I finished heading down that rabbit trail, let me talk about what I have been doing with my life, or in actuality what I have been failing to do. All my life I have had a very nasty tendency to just dwell in the moment and not worry to much about long term consequences and ramifications to my actions. This has caused me to become a very poor steward of the material things and internal gifts that God has given to me. I always manage to skate by until these past six months, due to poor stewardship of the money God has given me I was yet another one of those idiot guys living pay check to pay check when I really didn't have to. To clarify, I am not calling someone an idiot who lives pay check to paycheck when they have to, but I am classifying those of us(myself included) who had the opportunity to save but instead chose to spend on things I didn't need which resulted in living paycheck to paycheck.

Then came the car problems, it started there and with various other unexpected monetary twists such as suddenly, due to being put on a poor job, making ten dollars an hour less then I was before. So all of a sudden because I failed to be a good steward with the money God had given me, I have no savings to cover myself when I lost all the money per hour from my pay rate which also resulted in not having the money to fix the car. You can see where this goes, it just gets worse and worse as bills build on bills.

Adding to all that, a sense of depression set in because of the money problems and something else followed that, a giant wedge has been driven between me and the God I love. In not following His commands to be a good steward with the things He has given me, I managed to go into debt, depression and feel emotionally separated from God. This also caused me to become very introverted, keeping my problems to myself and not wanting to be around others, not allowing my friends to pray for me and be there for me. I was to prideful to let anyone in, I didn't want others to see how badly I had messed up. So there you have it, poor stewardship followed by pride have left me spiritually crippled.

The beautiful part is though, now that I have come to terms with what I did to get myself in this situation, I know that God can and will help me get out of it if I turn to Him and follow His plan for my life. I fully believe this problem was put in my life for a reason, to show me just how crippling being a poor steward can be, to point out the pride in my life and if I allow God to work through me, if I run back to Him as a dear to water, then it will make me a stronger, more Godly person for it. So please keep me in your prayers friends and know that now that I have hit rock bottom, with Gods help I will climb out of this pit.

Tim Shrout

"Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you"- John Owen(one of the good dead guys)