..acceptence

So here is the update on my life since the last 30 hours of being has occurred.

I had dinner with my dad. So much prayer and tears went into this event for me and honestly I did not think that God was going to pull through. I didn't have faith that he was big enough to fix my heart for this conversation and I didn't think that he was bigger than my dad's screwed up past and I didn't think that we could be equals in conversation or even equals in Christ. I doubted and entered into the experience with preemptive feelings of defeat and damage control.

The amazing this that happened was that Jesus showed up and that crazy, 'I don't know shit about God and I have no clue what is happening to my life' was the theme of our conversations and we stood at the level foot of the cross, for what was the first time in my whole life. With my nature of thinking and thinking and thinking about thinking and then thinking about thinking about thinking taking over who I was the past few days of my life, I needed an escape and an ear to understand what the hell was happening to my understanding of Christ. I would have never guessed that the answer to this need would come in the form of my broken father and that it would be the most beautiful thing because it was something that I was never even expecting.

He gave me ultimate permission to exist in this state of agony of "who the hell is God and what does that actually mean in my life?" There is a really good reason that we are called to be in the world but not of the world and that is not a nice, cliche alternative phrase but that reality in my life is the most agonizing thing I have ever experienced. I feel so often like my soul is wondering the earth, searching only for God and the people that he most purely dwells in and becoming super pissed off about anything that is not either of those realities.

To live is Christ and to die is gain. What the hell does this mean? What does it really mean to have the only thing that keeps me alive be Christ? How much of America and Christianity do I have to give up to get a purified life in Christ and is this even possible while I am still a human being? Is the most appealing alternative to a life lived in Christ death? Am I so satisfied with the personhood of Christ that death would be the next best option for me?

What does it mean to really seek the face of God? What does it mean to know God? If the only condition for me to 'get' into heaven is to know God, isn't that the only thing that I should be concerned about? Forget ministry, forget Bible study, forget spiritual disciplines if they are in anyway keeping me from knowing Christ. I want to know nothing but Christ and his crucifixion. I do not to be a servant of Christ if I am too busy doing spiritual deeds to hear his name calling out, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?" If I can't hear that voice in my life then I don't deserve the person who is calling out and I don't deserve to be following him.

To be seeking completely after Christ I think that all of the other area of my life that so many people think they need to 'work on' can be simple bi-products of seeking Christ.

But ultimately, what the hell do I know. I want to know nothing because knowing things will keep me comfortable and I don't want to be comfortable. Comfort is being fully human and I want none of it.

I want to KNOW Christ and I want to be a partner in his suffering because nothing else is real.