Our struggle

Jesus said to me a few months ago, "Ashley, your struggle is not with Me. Your struggle is with your own heart." A couple months later I was reading 2 Corinthians and Paul is talking to them about holiness and being set apart and he says to them at one point, "You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections." Exactly the same thing Jesus had spoken to me, eh? I remember laughing but the last few weeks I am SO aware of how our hearts can be our own worst enemy. It's not as funny when you're struggling! lol. When Jesus said that to me a few months back, it broke some kind of angry entitlement I thought I had the right to. He doesn't owe me anything, He already gave everything. I wasn't wrestling with Him. I was pissed off because my heart was in this 'demand' place and He wasn't giving in to it. The way I thought He should that is. The demands in our hearts, often masked or spiritualized to be something else, can be strong driving forces. They restrict us far more than He does. Which is what Paul was saying to the Corinthians. Funny huh? We, ourselves, stay in these restricted places. He doesn't keep us in them because He refuses to give us what we want, when we want it, how we want it. We stay in them because we are refusing to surrender to Him and give up our 'childish ways'. So here I am, struggling. It is different this time around. I'm weak, aware of my inability and my lack and everything else and somehow I think that's a beautiful place to be. My need isn't demanding Him to meet it. In whatever way I think He should. It just is what it is. It's there. And I'm weak. And I'm tempted to go outside of Him to meet it. And He knows that and yet He isn't disillusioned by me. He is exposing my weakness and inability with the intention of continuing this process in my heart and completing it. And He is meeting me the way He knows He should and the way He knows I need it. And in all of that, I'm attempting to give up my childish ways and trust Him. And He knows that.