questioning

I've reached that stage where I understand why many great thinkers became atheists, and I'm not sure I'm quite comfortable with that.

First off--I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider myself a thinker. Yes, I know it's pompous and pretentious. But I think a lot, and I can't help but think I'm a little deeper than some of my friends, family, and co-workers.

For instance, I know when I'm being a fool. Well. Most of the time.

We've been hearing a lot about idols in church and it's just falling on deaf ears for me because I haven't got any idols. At least, not in the sense of "things you think your life would fall apart without." Not my writing anymore. Not my job. Not my friends. Not family.

It's almost scary, because I can't think of anything. But I know there are things I care about far too much--certain shows, certain feelings/emotions. Without the flash, without inspiration and Joy, life would be grim indeed...but are those Idols, or merely manifestations of His glory?

I know that the thought of heaven fills me with a greater joy than anything else on earth. I understand that it means fulfillment of all the things I desire but can't put a name to--the northernness, perhaps even what I've come to call "paganness." Yet while the abstract idea is grand to me, the everyday details of Christianity have come to feel trite and meaningless. Why do we stand around and sing songs about how alive we are now that another man has died? Why are lives (seemingly) transformed, only to revert back into practices of sin that becomes secret because of shame and fear of judgement?

A question was once posed to me that I failed to answer fully: How would your life look different if you were not a Christian?

In all honesty, I have to reply, "It wouldn't, very much."

I might not go to church. But then again I might, if only to please my parents, who I would still love and respect.

I would maybe curse a little more, and probably would have fewer inhibitions about believing things about certain social issues. I might be in love with different people. I might be less self-controlled, but also less guilt-ridden and angry at myself.

I would be more independent. I would be a little wilder. Yet I would probably choose the same people (Waves, over and over again) and the same groups and the same path. I would maybe do the things I hold back from doing for duty's sake--like spending my life traveling instead of trying to settle down and serve Him.

I wouldn't give my money to the church, but I think I would give it other places.

In other words, I'd be a fairly "good person" with fewer scruples about grey areas and a little more of a deathwish, probably, but still pretty stable. Just set on pursuing my own dreams and goals instead of trying to seek His will for my life.

That answer concerns me, because shouldn't my life with and without Christ look drastically different? Shouldn't I be living in such a way now that answering that question would stun me and make others marvel?

Ways I Could Be a Better Christian:
1. Sin less (obviously)
2. Better Bible/Prayer Habits
3. More Service/Selfless living
4. Humility, Kindness, Patience...more fruit of the Spirit
5. Less Pride
6. More Courage In Sharing the Gospel

And so on.

I know God doesn't want me to be a "better Christian." The work of purification and "washing and renewing" is HIS work, done by HIS hand, not mine. Yet I can't just sit by in a boat moored to the dock and expect for him to push me out to sea.

So many thoughts. Is it better that I doubt and have fear and such cynacism than if I lived in ignorant complacency?

I don't know. I only wish my faith was stronger, that I desired him more, that I had the energy and will to work harder at obeying and living in courage and faith.

Help me, Lord.

one step enough for me

I'm in an interesting stage that most young adults will recognize: that strange borderland of "transition," a foot in two worlds, belonging to neither.

Let me explain. I have friends on Facebook posting about new couches for their homes, revealing pictures of their newborn children, announcing engagements, and moaning about midterm exams. But not the same friends on all four counts. I'm in that awkward stage of "Well I'm out of college but not really to the next part yet, but thank heavens I get to preview it from this cozy seat."

Just kidding. I could skip the preview, thanks.

Tomorrow I go in to speak with an advisor about a secondary education certification program. Basically, "Do you have what it takes to teach High School English?" I've been working through a lot of things and have come to a resounding conclusion:

I don't know what I want to do with my life.

Of course there are the "ultimate goals": seek, serve, and obey God, love people, live with boldness and courage.

But there are so many ways I could do that. I could

• Move to a south Asian country and teach English.
• Get a job as a marketing professional in a local business.
• Work part-time at a coffee shop and tutor international students.
• Get a masters in English and teach at a college.
• Get a masters in Library Science and become a librarian/archivist.
• Complete teaching cert and teach high-school English.
• Get into the publishing, journalism, or media world.

In short, there are about a billion different things I could do with the education and talents I already have. But the options are a little overwhelming, and I'm scared to move for fear I'll make the wrong choice.

This is my solution for the fear: Remember. Remember. Remember the signs. Recall the mighty deeds of the God Who Saves, of God With Us, never leaving, never sleeping, never failing. Remember how He brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, how He led them through the desert, gave victory to Joshua, direction to Daniel and Joseph, provision for David over and over again.

My God is a God who plots the path of kings. He is capable of handling mine.

But sometimes, you're 21 and driving down a road and suddenly you're not just driving, you're running away from all the responsibilities and expectations and hopes and dreams you thought you'd given up for lost (and maybe from God, too). And the future catches in your throat and chokes you and suddenly you're sobbing in highway traffic and praying "God, God, God, don't let me be for nothing!"

And then you remember that you're 21, that you still have a good 60 years on this planet to do something, to discover what it is you're here for, and in the meantime there is a bed for you to sleep in and a wonderful thing called parents to hug you and comfort you and make you cookies and dinner and tell you it's okay, that you're okay, that you're not a failure, that it's not for nothing.

But oh, to have dreams again! To know what it is I would do with my life, "time and money aside."

Lord, direct my thoughts and decisions, that I would always seek after you, and not after my own desires.

Here in the dark, I do not ask to see

The path ahead; one step enough for me

Lead on, lead on Kindly Light!

-Lead Kindly Light, Audrey Assad

this is the first time you've been this old

"Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else, but just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes." 

-The Winter of the Air

---

This quote is still getting to me because even though I'm not 23, this is where I am. Albeit still at "Mom's" (which is still home and has ears that listen every day and arms that were never for anyone else, all of which do calm me down), but there's just something about all of it that makes me feel not at home in my skin, like I should be bursting into a rainbow-colored firework or diving underground to be replanted as a tree.

I spend a lot of time worrying about who I am, where I'm going, what I'm going to do with my life.

So many pieces of my life are a paradox: 

• I want to stay home with my family and watch them grow...but I want to see the world and travel, independent and free.
• I want to have this incredibly deep faith that can move mountains and truly seek after God...but I also want to have eyes open and not trust in things blindly. (Maybe not a paradox).
• I want to do what I love all the time and maybe become rich and famous...but I want to make next to nothing and give what's left away and help people with all that I am.

This crude matter can't be all those things at once. I have to know what to say and when, what fights to fight and when to run away.  And in those five minutes of nostalgia and panic, I see none of the good things, but only how far I have left to go--my faults and failures, my sins, my fears.

I am chained to my past with guilt and fear and a boundless lack of faith

so

how can you tell me that God's love is deeper and higher and greater and farther than my past?

Than my present?

Than my horrible, terrifying, heart-rendingly hopeless future?

Yet if I don't believe in His love, I have nothing left to cling to.

---

How is one supposed to rejoice in trials?

How can there be a point at which the light dawns and the darkness flees? When my faith becomes real and I have joy again in following the narrow way?

Father, give me faith. Help me to believe that You are greater than all the things that drag me down (even my fear, even my sin), and that one day, my faith will be made sight. 

As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;

I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.

-Psalm 17:!5

before your face

The light penetrates my eyes, piercing
my face, stabbing deep into 
my heart, and suddenly
all the words I have ever spoken,
all the thoughts I have ever pondered, are there
trembling under your gaze.

I am ashamed. Woe is me, for even
standing in your presence--that alone is enough
to shake my heart and soul to the core
as your beauty and majesty surrounds me
overwhelms me
envelops me in its glory.

But
You see my thoughts, the futile workings
of my mind, plagued by sin and doubt.
You know my motives and my heart; there is
no secret I can keep
No nook or cranny too secret for you to uncover.

My heart is laid bare, and behold, it is barren.
My thoughts are nonsense, like the jawings of a
drunken two year old
My soul is a shattered cistern, unholy and broken
destroyed almost beyond saving
And I am undone.

Why did I doubt you?
Why did I lose hope?
Why could I not wait an hour and pray for my deliverance?

Why were my intentions misguided?
Why did I waste so much time?
Why did I not listen better to your prompting and study your Word?

Forgive me for my nonsense questions
For this babbling mouth, so lacking of wisdom.
Create in me a clean heart
and renew a right spirit within me.

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” 

-C.S. Lewis

contemplating surrender

I am contemplating surrender and finding that it is not an easy task. It is simple enough to speak with your lips, "Lord, take my heart and let it be/ever only all for thee," to pray "Be my all-in-all; ruin my life, the plans that I've made. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me."

But how does one sacrifice? How does one eternally give up all claim to earthly possessions and feelings and anxieties and desires? Or rather the question should be "CAN one give up all those things?"

I know with my head that You want The Whole Tree, Lord, and not just this branch here and that limb there. You want to uproot ME. To break ME. To unform ME so that you may plant in MY place a thing that is GOOD and of YOU. And I long for that, Lord, with all that my sinful heart can long.

But must it be a daily surrender?

Must I take up my cross every day?

Must I die a thousand deaths-of-self, offer up my will again and again on Your altar in the hopes of one day being conformed to Your likeness?

Will I ever be whole?

"Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' Name, Amen."

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

day after dreary day

It's been a week since the break, and I still find my mind wandering in abstract ideas and prosaic musings that don't add up to two. It's like having the attention span of a five-year-old because the world is so great and strange and new that you can't focus on the present activity of walking to class or even the future fear of finding a job because look there are fuschia flowers popping out of green buds and the grass is the color of unripened bell-peppers.

This morning I awoke inside a cloud. The branches on the ghostly trees hung silently until the spring breeze began stirring in the deep, sending the flowers trembling with a yawn, cartwheeling across the surface of the silent lake. And then the mist blew away like wreathes of smoke (where does fog go when the wind takes it by the hand and whispers "Run"?) and all that remained was a slight dampness and the smell of fresh grass.

Walking to class, I saw a child with skin as soft as silk and slight, slanting eyes. My mind memorized the way his arms swung out, the way his steps faltered and jerked along in the sporadic movements of a child, still learning to be human. Spontaneous, free, joyful. The world is new to him, and everyone's head brushes the sky.

Jets roared overhead. I stopped to stare, the roar resounding in my ears and for a moment everything was just blue--the blue of the sky stretching over me, flying, soaring over the surface of this spinning ball of mud. And when I turned to walk on, I was flying still.

The world is new and strange, because I am growing. My head is inches away from brushing the sky. I am learning to look at a couple holding hands and smile because He holds my hand and my heart, and a mere fifty years is nothing compared to eternity. They are an echo of the real, a shadow of love, but I have the thing itself, the unknowable, the vast, the magnificent, the glorious. I am learning that suffering is not meaningless, that waiting and waiting and feeling as though I am always sliding backward as day by day my sin becomes more evident in the light of His love and grace is only the fire burning those very sins away, the wine press that is making this bruised and broken skin less and less a part of me.

I am learning to pray for brokenness.

I am learning that only one thing matters in life, and all else is vanity. And the one thing--not only is it the pearl of great price, worth dedicating my whole life, day after dreary day, to serving, seeking, finding, preaching. Not only is greater than any loss I could suffer, greater than any sacrifice I could give, greater than any pit or darkness or despair or depression. Not only is it All, but it is already mine. All the answers to the questions I ask lie in the leather book I carry with me every day, sitting there in the worn backpack beside me.

O, that my heart would be able to say, in complete truth, "You are enough for me!" If only I believed His promises, trusted in His faithfulness, leaned upon His strength instead of blistering my hands digging into this hard clay.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Though you slay me, yet I will praise you
Though you take from me, I will bless your name
Though you ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who's all I need.

-Shane and Shane, "Though You Slay Me"