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I am relatively content with my life until I get on facebook, or pinterest or twitter or whatever hateful God-forsaken website Satan created to force people to constantly compete and compare aspects of their lives with each other.

So today, I was content to sing at church, talk to a friend on the phone, go for a run, bake cookies, and watch Once Upon A Time. That's a good day for me. Anyway I decided to take a picture of the cookies and put in on Instagram because that's what kids do these days when they bake something awesome (which, by the way, were awesome, oatmeal-chocolate chip-craisin-deliciousness). And I just got consumed with everyone else's pictures and lives and it made me wonder if Moses or any of those people stranded in the desert really understood what it meant when God said THOU SHALT NOT COVET, cause I can't even touch a computer without wanting something someone else has or feeling insecure about what I don't have.

I mean the Israelites lived in the desert, what did they covet, their neighbor's plot of sand?

And it's not just stuff for me. It's people's lives really. Did God say do not covet your neighbor's life? Wasn't it your neighbor's donkey? (That's a fun one to read in the King James) I see picture after picture on Face-tweet-insta-pin of adventure and friendship and success and people getting degrees or married or traveling around the world and honestly, it made my cookies taste less fantastic than they really were.

I've attached worth to things people do, the things I do, and I rank myself as less successful, less worthy, less interesting because I don't have _____ .

It's ridiculous because I've been given so much. But I find myself wondering if my life is enough and if I'm living up to my own expectations - which is even more ridiculous because they're absolutely unattainable. And all this posting-tweeting-pinning-dreaming-coveting-lusting only fuels this idea in my head that life is supposed to be perpetually

happy. fun. exciting. sexy. interesting. adventurous. entertaining. rewarding. successful. PERFECT.

But the reality of it all is that life is hard and full of struggle. And Jesus said the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. Somewhere along the way I missed this, and came to believe that this life and it's experiences are supposed to be happy and rewarding all the time, and if it's not I need ____ in order to make it so. It's like being in a race and somehow getting turned around - discovering I was striving toward perfection and not running toward the gospel.

How silly of me.

Here's what I'm NOT saying. I'm not saying that life is supposed to be miserable and people shouldn't enjoy anything and shouldn't post happy statuses on facebook. But what I am trying to get across is that living life in pursuit of the gospel isn't supposed to be easy. And it's okay to be lonely or bored or sad or afraid or unfulfilled. This isn't my eternal home, this isn't where my hope lies and therefore it is absolutely okay if my life is not perfect. I can rest in the promise that he who began a good work in me will see it to completion.

That doesn't mean I sit around and do nothing, it doesn't mean that I'm not seeking to live out the gospel in my daily life. But it does mean that I can rest in the faithfulness of a God who is generous and loving enough to let a sinner be a part of his great story of redemption and reconciliation.

Well, I've written myself into a much more encouraged state of mind. I think I'll go eat another cookie.