Daily preaching the Gospel to myself is the only reason I started Gospelized. I’ve never promoted this project or tried to get famous off it. So when I stopped doing the one thing it was made to do, it fell off. I spent so much time sorting through details and wandering through circumstances that I lost the big picture.

I stopped writing. I told myself that what I was dealing with took up all my head space — no room for creativity. Instead turning my eyes upward, I turned them downward. Instead of lifting the details up to God, I let gravity win.

But even though this is an art project, it’s only named so because what I do is art. I wish that I would have made art instead of avoiding it. Raw art is real art, even if I don’t like showing it. I like to be composed, and my oft-appearing inability to do so makes me very self-conscious about exposing myself when I don’t have to. You do that enough uncontrollably, says my brain. You don’t need to go around doing it voluntarily.

Where is the line between vulnerable and overextended? How much is too much, how much is not enough?

These are valid questions. But they are not the questions of this art project. And that’s how I got confused. I started trying to answer questions that do not need to be addressed here. And then I didn’t want to answer those, so I left it alone.

I should have written, thirty days in a row, if need be: “Jesus Christ, Lord of my life, died on the cross so that I could be free in abundant life, now and forever.”

The goal of Gospelized is to say that in as many different ways as possible. But if it must be said the same way over and over so that I believe it, it should be done that way.

Because I’m not writing for other people; I’m writing to remind myself that Jesus Christ went to a painful death and unspeakable emotional anguish so that I wouldn’t have to fear either one. That is the purpose for which Gospelized is here. I forget that sometimes.

I forget that a lot.

Please forgive me.

I am very aware that my emotions do not constitute truth. I am no longer so short-sided to imagine the whole world shifting to and affected by my joys and fears. This, however, does not mean that I can actually trust Christ, the Truth, each time I encounter a joy or sorrow. It merely means that I can look past my emotions.

Sometimes I turn back to them, after looking past them. That’s more immediately comforting. Sometimes I soldier on, seeking the approval of Christ alone. This is almost always a comfort that comes when I wake up feeling well in the world. It is almost never immediate, which I feel is unfortunate. I think it would be a lot better of a selling tactic if doing the right thing automatically resulted in bonuses, leisure, pleasure and traveling. I guess there are churches I can go to for that.

But no matter which side I choose, the emotions still rage. That’s at least half of the reason I know they can’t be the objective truth: nothing completes them, not the right thing or the wrong thing. They’re just reactions.

But they sure feel like the truth.

I temper and taper my heart of hearts
never daring to voice what it is I want
I live for a God who says, “Say what you want!”
The master cartographer, plotted my heart
The master agrarian, changing my heart
so to want what I want, with all of myself
Will not be a vice when I want what thou art