Enough about you, let me tell you a bit about myself!  I like attention.  I like to be in charge.  I like people to praise me for my skills and accomplishments.  I don’t like to take crap from anyone! And I don’t need anyone, other than to compliment me!  I am extremely smart, smarter than most of the human population.  I understand God better than most theologians.

I can see it now, some of you are thinking, ”That’s not Buck, he’s not that way at all!”.  Others are saying, “You nailed it! That’s him to a tee!”.  Still others are saying, “I think some of those things are true and others are not!”

The truth is, that list is me!  Those are some of the things I struggle with and have struggled with much of my life.  They are some of the things that hinder my relationship with people and with God.

But on the flip side I also don’t like the spotlight.  I like to remain anonymous and go unnoticed.  I am very happy just following and serving.  I like to praise people for their talent and accomplishments and often feel embarrassed when I get noticed and complimented.  I need people.  My life is vacant and lonely without human interaction and touch!  I struggle with comprehension and often feel very lacking in my knowledge of life, the world and its wonderful Creator.  I am not a very loveable man. Understanding of the ways of God often elude me and require much thought and processing to lay hold of the simplest of truths.

You see that description is me as well. I often feel like I am struggling with two “Bucks”.  That can be a real challenge for me, and for anyone who is connected to me.  I think at times I am crazy, but then I find that I am not alone.  In Romans 7:21-24 Paul says ” . . . when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,  but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?!”

Now I know many of you who are reading this, and the truth is, we all struggle. And that can be a hard thing when we live in relationships. Not only in couple relationships, but even in friendships and acquaintances. We all desire to do good, but often don’t! For me personally, one of the things that helps me, is to keep in mind what Paul said in the book of Philipians 2:5-11: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”