Entering into another new season. Can't wait.

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Yes Lord I will, as hard at it may be.

So I spent the day with some of Kenta's friends yesterday in Chatswood, went to a lovely dumpling restaurant called New Shanghai. After a bunch of picking up people and buying some flowers, we turned up at Kenta's house to visit his parents and Miho.

His parents seem a lot better than a year ago which is a relief. No-one has forgotten, no-one will forget and still I don't think anyone understands why... I struggle to. Hearing Kenta's dad reason about how sending him to a different doctor might have changed everything, it hurts.

That said, it's happened. And on a lighter and happier (and very surreal) note, was playing around with Adi, the dog they got after Kenta passed away and named in tribute to Kenta's unhealthy obsession with Adidas. Was having a conversation with Adi about soccer, I asked him to sit down when I say the team he likes.

Chelsea...
Man Utd...
Arsenal...
Liverpool...
Milan...
Birmingham...

No response, just repeated blank stares. Then I tried Juventus...

And he sat down immediately.

Guess which team Kenta supported?

Juventus.

Maybe it was coincidence and the dog was just buggered and sick of me talking... but maybe it was something else? Whatever it was, a tear came to my eye and I was really happy.

I miss you.

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption,[e] the forgiveness of sins.

Col 1:13

Keep fighting

Rom 7:14

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God's law; ²³but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Falling time and time again to that one sin, with fluctuating hope in my own capacity to beat it; not the way to go. But God will rescue us and help release us from our sinful nature. Thanks be to Him =D

But God But God But God. Love the two words so so much.

Struggling with something...? Ask God for forgiveness, turn away, rid yourself of condemnation and guilt (for it is no longer I but the sinful nature within me), and step into God's law. Victory is only a step away.