Who do you say I am?

Have yourself a merry little Christmas has lost a little of its joy tonight. God, I don't know why this has rocked me like it has. I feel convicted but I don't even know what of. Like I have something to apologize for, but not. So, so happy it's Christmas, but struggling to really understand its depth in a secularized, glossed over time. Just torn. Like I've been hit in the gut. And it doesn't feel like the comment of one friend that's gotten me. It's like an overwhelming conviction that for all you've shown me this semester, I'm sitting here comfortable on my couch feeling defeated. That I am still not acting in accordance to what you've given me. I feel surrounded by guilt and disdain and hatefulness.

"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,'

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you."

I can't see for all that's spinning in my head right now. And I hate that because, like Simon Peter, I want to know that you are Christ. That the Son of the Living God is working in this. Not because any one person said something or because I have a church full of people singing about you around me. But because you, the Father in Heaven, are really revealing bits of yourself to me. Shine in this, God. If you are using this guilt to convict me and mold me, bring it. But if this is just a comment that is keeping me from rejoicing this Christmas, I ask that you restore to me the joy of your salvation. Whatever the case, God, create in me a pure heart.

"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 

-Matthew 16:15-17