slowly whittle away

it's strange how i've learnt to accept it rather than fight it. for half a year, yes, it faded into the distance, but it's come thundering back with vengeance. i don't see why i can't seem to marry all the aspects of my life together into a single face. i'm pretty much the same, but also very different, altogether at once. i can sense that genuine, fledgling humility at one moment but drip with poisonous pride only minutes later. sometimes i can smile from the depths of my heart, other times i feel it plastered on my cold, hard face like cheap wallpaper.

perhaps it exists in everyone, i don't know. i'm trying my best to shear off the unsavoury dimension of me and nurture the fruit of the Spirit as much as i can. however, if i were a farmer, it's as if i were throwing a mixture of fertiliser and weedkiller on the same patch of field at the same time. i find myself wrestling with this agonising dichotomy at almost every moment, even when i'm sitting on the bus, glazed eyes staring out at seemingly nowhere. all that while, my mind is furiously battling what feels like a losing battle for goodness and godliness.

i guess it would help if someone told me that this is pretty normal. or if there were a way out. i've heard and read a lot of helpful advice that has nudged me helpfully in the right direction, but somehow or other, it just gets throttled by some weakness of mine. pride, perhaps. or laziness. i desperately, desperately want to honour God with my whole life, but right now, it feels like a 50-50 ratio.

if only there were a way to change conclusively. one thing i've learnt in life though, is that nothing comes easily or instantaneously. it's always the hard, long journeys that are most satisfying and most rewarding, with that glorious view on the mountain top, before realising that there are even higher mountains to challenge.