Today has been a great journey of understanding when it comes to the role of honesty in my life. I spent a lot of my day sitting in UI interviews, asking questions and trying to probe into the heart of the people that were applying. I just really wanted to know their heart and I wanted them to feel comfortable enough in the process that they could do it. I think that I am going to have a disclaimer for all of the interviews tomorrow.
I also learned a lot about honesty in my small group tonight. I asked a question about nun's and their romantic view of God and what everyone thought about it and it brought about very engaging and amazing conversation. I learned that I feel most initimately connected with God when I am being one hundred percent honest with him. The times when I break down in prayer and get angry and hit the couch and swear are the times when I feel most connected with God. If I am sitting there and basically bullshitting the creator of the universe it is the biggest insult I can pay him. I also think I discovered the importance of unconditional love too. Its that love that allows me to know that I can be completely authentic with Jesus and he will still be there when I am finished. The times I am most vulnerable with where I am and with God are the times in my life when I feel like I know myself the best.
We also talked a lot about how much of our perspective on God really effected the way we view life and other relationships. I realized that honesty is the way that I feel most loved, respected, and intimate with a person. I feel a deep sense of connectedness with another person when I feel like they are giving me something authentic. I desire this immensely for my relationships with others and demand it of myself. I think that I take this raw honesty into every serious relationship I get in and use it as my pressidence until I am forced to do otherwise. I think this is what kills me about my damaged relationships, I feel like I communicate differently and thats because I do, I am far more calculated with my thoughts. This space kills so much of me. I want nothing more than for reconciliation to happen and for me to trust enough again to be real with that other person but I think that hearts are healed very very slowly. I also think that I have a lot of personal insecurity when it comes to people who have hurt me and I think that I display a lot of self-protective behaviors.
Something else I realized tonight too is the role of God that my husband will hopefully play in my life. I was thinking about the relationship that I want with him and kind of the way I would like him to be and a lot of that had to do with the way I view Jesus. I want him to be passionate about life and I want it to be an overwhelming force of tension and grappling with the core of life, leading to deep and authentic living. I want someone who always knows that there is something better and is pressing on towards that something really really hard. I think that I am excited for the heart of the man I will one day marry and the way that God is preparing him to show me so much Jesus. It also gives me comfort in myself, knowing that in all of this randomness that is my heart and brain, I am becoming refined to be a living and present face of God in someone else's life. Haha, so much for looking for someone. What a waste of time...
5.08.2007
4.16.2007
..empty
Hi Mr. Blog.
Today, and the last great while, I feel a deep, pithy sense of emptiness in my life. I sit here eating chips and hummus and my world is very very stable. I don't need anything really, no food, no provisions, and the possibilities of my life are being seized and explored. Separating myself from myself I think that my life is fine. I am moving forward, although not as fast as I would like, but I don't feel as though I am stagnant.
The problem then? I feel like life has been sucked out of me. I feel like I haven't been relying on God and I feel as though I am completely meaningless and powerless without him in my life. Another problem. I don't know what to do about this. I have grand thoughts about willing myself into a deeper relationship with God. Maybe playing an arm wrestling game of Biblical devotion or time spent in prayer and then win and then feel close to him again. I don't even want to entertain those thoughts though. I want to be in love with Jesus and I want to feel very very alive because I am living with him.
I have been incapable of loving recently. I feel as though I am floating through life, doing things and meeting with people and having 'deep' conversation but really I am kind of faking it. I don't feel it so I put on the fake mask of grins and lukewarm theology and nondescript love and make it through my days. Sleep is entirely unsatisfying for me right now. I do it but I don't like it. I don't think about Jesus before I go to bed and I have dreams that are meaningless or frustrating and wake up feeling like I wasted my time. I find that I am pushing things that I know are gifts from God, through my life, because I have hope that sometime in the future I won't feel like this.
I miss Jesus so much. I think that right now I am keeping myself busy and not allowing myself to think about my vacuum because it hurts so badly. I instantly come to the edge of tears and then run away, scared of the pain that jumping off of the edge would cause.
I don't want to be like this. I want the passions and desires of my life to beautifully taint every part of who I am. I want to be amazingly excited about life and possibility and Jesus.
I want to feel life deeper but I don't know how to right now.
ps. moderately obsessed with the Myers-Briggs test. I am an INFJ and that is me to a T (except I am not a T).
Today, and the last great while, I feel a deep, pithy sense of emptiness in my life. I sit here eating chips and hummus and my world is very very stable. I don't need anything really, no food, no provisions, and the possibilities of my life are being seized and explored. Separating myself from myself I think that my life is fine. I am moving forward, although not as fast as I would like, but I don't feel as though I am stagnant.
The problem then? I feel like life has been sucked out of me. I feel like I haven't been relying on God and I feel as though I am completely meaningless and powerless without him in my life. Another problem. I don't know what to do about this. I have grand thoughts about willing myself into a deeper relationship with God. Maybe playing an arm wrestling game of Biblical devotion or time spent in prayer and then win and then feel close to him again. I don't even want to entertain those thoughts though. I want to be in love with Jesus and I want to feel very very alive because I am living with him.
I have been incapable of loving recently. I feel as though I am floating through life, doing things and meeting with people and having 'deep' conversation but really I am kind of faking it. I don't feel it so I put on the fake mask of grins and lukewarm theology and nondescript love and make it through my days. Sleep is entirely unsatisfying for me right now. I do it but I don't like it. I don't think about Jesus before I go to bed and I have dreams that are meaningless or frustrating and wake up feeling like I wasted my time. I find that I am pushing things that I know are gifts from God, through my life, because I have hope that sometime in the future I won't feel like this.
I miss Jesus so much. I think that right now I am keeping myself busy and not allowing myself to think about my vacuum because it hurts so badly. I instantly come to the edge of tears and then run away, scared of the pain that jumping off of the edge would cause.
I don't want to be like this. I want the passions and desires of my life to beautifully taint every part of who I am. I want to be amazingly excited about life and possibility and Jesus.
I want to feel life deeper but I don't know how to right now.
ps. moderately obsessed with the Myers-Briggs test. I am an INFJ and that is me to a T (except I am not a T).
3.31.2007
..choice
Oh boy, it’s been a long while since I have been here. I think that its because I have been a long while from being in close relationship to God. Looking back on the last month of my life I see a whole lot of nothingness and apathy and laziness. I barely pulled through the end of the quarter and stumbled through Plunge and spring break in a daze, confused and asleep. It has really really sucked. Last night I cried about it and I have felt uneasy about 'it' for a little over a week.
Honestly, I like that it sucks. I like that all of my life feels like shit when I am not okay with God. It would terrify me to think about what it would mean if my relationship with Jesus went down the drain and my life remained stable, completely unaffected. This proves to me that it’s real. The fact that I suffer in its absence is proof that it is absolutely legitimate. Being in love with someone affects every dimension of my life and if I am actually in a 'romantic' relationship it should have that same, deeply penetrating presence in my life.
So here it is: I have been looking for God. Basically my whole life and I will be until I reach heaven. It’s at the very core of my being and that longing for God will never go away, whether or not I am conscious of it. Before I came to know Jesus I was looking for him and when I am choosing not to follow him I am still looking for him.
I look for him in other people, in experiences, in who I am and I am so frustrated all of the time because I can never ever be satisfied. I look for unconditional love, complete acceptance, deep understanding, unending compassion and peace in so many of my human relationships. I get so frustrated and depressed with they can't do this. When they basically just suck at life and I stand there and am so dissatisfied with their failure. When I am not satisfied and following Jesus, I look for him in others and hate life because they are human beings.
I am searching for God. Letting this be a fact that defines my life makes me so much more serious about everything I have in it. The one thing that God plays over and over and over and over in the Old Testament is the role of false Gods. God warned Israel so many times not to create false Gods and I have always thought that he repeated himself too much. You think that they would have gotten the point after a while and I get bored with reading it over and over again. I think that I kind of understand why the same point is brought up so many times. Being both a person made in the image of God, I am looking for him and at the same time I am a person of free will, with an endless selection of gods that I could choose from. This situation is the most dangerous and serious one in my life.
If I am honest about my faith journey passion and tension and faith have all played key roles but the role of idol worship in my life have been the one thing that is consistently crippling to my relationship with Jesus. It is the easiest thing to fall into and I do it all of the time, every single day of my life. That fucking sucks. I would vomit, or at least I hope I would vomit, at the ration of God worship to idol worship in my life.
If I look at the past and let it predict the future, as I often do during these times of 'drought', I get really, really discouraged. I think that the fact that God's grace is new every morning forces me to make a decision every morning and every moment of my day as to whether or not I will allow God to be God in my life or if I will try to awkwardly stuff a friend, experience, personality type, or fantasy into that place in my life. I am a thinking and rationalizing human being and I praise God that I am. It makes this life with him so much better because it is so real. In the midst of my thankfulness I must always remember that I am a person of free will and I am person born after the fall and in my nature I choose idols over God.
What is it going to be?
Honestly, I like that it sucks. I like that all of my life feels like shit when I am not okay with God. It would terrify me to think about what it would mean if my relationship with Jesus went down the drain and my life remained stable, completely unaffected. This proves to me that it’s real. The fact that I suffer in its absence is proof that it is absolutely legitimate. Being in love with someone affects every dimension of my life and if I am actually in a 'romantic' relationship it should have that same, deeply penetrating presence in my life.
So here it is: I have been looking for God. Basically my whole life and I will be until I reach heaven. It’s at the very core of my being and that longing for God will never go away, whether or not I am conscious of it. Before I came to know Jesus I was looking for him and when I am choosing not to follow him I am still looking for him.
I look for him in other people, in experiences, in who I am and I am so frustrated all of the time because I can never ever be satisfied. I look for unconditional love, complete acceptance, deep understanding, unending compassion and peace in so many of my human relationships. I get so frustrated and depressed with they can't do this. When they basically just suck at life and I stand there and am so dissatisfied with their failure. When I am not satisfied and following Jesus, I look for him in others and hate life because they are human beings.
I am searching for God. Letting this be a fact that defines my life makes me so much more serious about everything I have in it. The one thing that God plays over and over and over and over in the Old Testament is the role of false Gods. God warned Israel so many times not to create false Gods and I have always thought that he repeated himself too much. You think that they would have gotten the point after a while and I get bored with reading it over and over again. I think that I kind of understand why the same point is brought up so many times. Being both a person made in the image of God, I am looking for him and at the same time I am a person of free will, with an endless selection of gods that I could choose from. This situation is the most dangerous and serious one in my life.
If I am honest about my faith journey passion and tension and faith have all played key roles but the role of idol worship in my life have been the one thing that is consistently crippling to my relationship with Jesus. It is the easiest thing to fall into and I do it all of the time, every single day of my life. That fucking sucks. I would vomit, or at least I hope I would vomit, at the ration of God worship to idol worship in my life.
If I look at the past and let it predict the future, as I often do during these times of 'drought', I get really, really discouraged. I think that the fact that God's grace is new every morning forces me to make a decision every morning and every moment of my day as to whether or not I will allow God to be God in my life or if I will try to awkwardly stuff a friend, experience, personality type, or fantasy into that place in my life. I am a thinking and rationalizing human being and I praise God that I am. It makes this life with him so much better because it is so real. In the midst of my thankfulness I must always remember that I am a person of free will and I am person born after the fall and in my nature I choose idols over God.
What is it going to be?
3.03.2007
..radical
I am moderately certain that I am allergic to 1/2 and 1/2. I have a rash right now on my knee.
In my relationship with Jesus, I find out more and more of who I am when I fall more and more in love with him. I feel like seemingly cliché when I make statements like this but I will unpack it in a little soapbox scream. So much of my life can be wasted on defining who I am. It finds its way into everything; my clothes, music, eating habits, media intake, social dialog, and spiritual rituals, absolutely everything. It is truly amazing for me to sit down and think about the amount of time I spend trying to define who I am through activities and parts of my character and personality. It can become an all-consuming task that avoids total submission to Christ because; I have it all in control, thank you very much. The problem with this is that it is such a shallow and hollow way to spend my time. For every minute I have ever spend weighing the pros and cons about something in my life, whether or not it will make me cool or accepted or different, but in a cool way. I feel guilty about thinking about things like this but they consume my life and that consumption is so natural, such a normal state for my being to dwell in, that I wonder if I can know anything else. I think that this predicament has a direct correlation to my intensity in my relationship with Jesus. The more of myself I recklessly give to him, with only a few strings attached which are only broken through me asking Jesus Christ to break them, the more I become who I am. I scream with Paul when he says 'I WANT TO KNOW NOTHING BUT CHRIST CRUCIFIED'. If I 'know' myself, it is the greatest facade to avoid my purpose that I could ever muster up.
Some people spend their whole lives creating themselves, to realize that when they die, it’s all gone. Perhaps are they not let into heaven because there is nothing of them there on that day? I don't know.
I think that that the point I am at right now is maybe not the surrender point of this process but the acceptance point. Am I going to allow myself to be whom Jesus made me? What if I don't get to share my deep, epic thoughts with others, but listen the rest of my life? What if God want me to be ridiculously wealthily? What if he wants me to do things that 'I am not called to'? What if I am supposed to die slowly? What if I am suppose to stay in shitty mediocre Christianity and find out some way to be of one pure and holy passion in this lukewarm sinkhole? What if I don't like what that Lindsey looks like? It's a promise that I will be hated and spit on and mocked and that I won't be thought of highly and that my humility will be painfully present in everything I do. This is what I sign up for when I flippantly say that I am child of God, trying to follow Jesus. These words fly out of my mouth so easily, perhaps they should come with far more reservation and weight and joy and passion.
There is so much release when there are moments when I am absolutely living in the spirit. They are the heights and depths of my soul and they are the moments when I am truly living. They never fail me even though sometimes I feel as though I am going to explode. It’s the moments when I avoid living that I hate life the most. It’s when I slip into brainless mediocrity and myself that I implode with tension and sadness and apathy.
So what does all of this verbiage actually look like in my life? Most of the time it is simply left in the moment of tension and never actually explored in reality. I usually sit and scream at people and events and conversations and ideals, but not audibly, in my soul. In these moments all I want to do is go to a mountain and scream until I have no physical strength left and then I want to lay down and sob until collapse and then I want to scream pray and then fall asleep for a long period of time. I want to be with other people like me more than anything. I want to be the people that want Jesus 24/7 but are completely honest with their humanity and live in the tensions of a Jesus in human skin. I want to leave everyone I know. I want to meet a monastery or a nunnery or a radical community where Jesus isn't a pet side project, he is an obsession. I want to be with people who encourage my faith, push me into God, and force me to image the impossible. I don't want to suppress it all, pushing it down to make room for lame ass conversations that rot at the very meaning of life. I don't want to be frustrated with Christians, I just want to be obsessed with Jesus and be with people who are completely obsessed.
I realize that all of these words might sound selfish, but future self, know that I love people, dearly with most of my heart, but Jesus is always more beautiful and always more perfect and I trust him so much more.
I don't know what to do with this mess of it all.
If you are creepy and read my blog, whatever, but if your heart aches for this same experience, lets run away to a mountain or a cliff or a beach and scream, cry, pray and sleep in the crazy vastness of God, forgetting all that we are because we are so wrapped in his presence.
In my relationship with Jesus, I find out more and more of who I am when I fall more and more in love with him. I feel like seemingly cliché when I make statements like this but I will unpack it in a little soapbox scream. So much of my life can be wasted on defining who I am. It finds its way into everything; my clothes, music, eating habits, media intake, social dialog, and spiritual rituals, absolutely everything. It is truly amazing for me to sit down and think about the amount of time I spend trying to define who I am through activities and parts of my character and personality. It can become an all-consuming task that avoids total submission to Christ because; I have it all in control, thank you very much. The problem with this is that it is such a shallow and hollow way to spend my time. For every minute I have ever spend weighing the pros and cons about something in my life, whether or not it will make me cool or accepted or different, but in a cool way. I feel guilty about thinking about things like this but they consume my life and that consumption is so natural, such a normal state for my being to dwell in, that I wonder if I can know anything else. I think that this predicament has a direct correlation to my intensity in my relationship with Jesus. The more of myself I recklessly give to him, with only a few strings attached which are only broken through me asking Jesus Christ to break them, the more I become who I am. I scream with Paul when he says 'I WANT TO KNOW NOTHING BUT CHRIST CRUCIFIED'. If I 'know' myself, it is the greatest facade to avoid my purpose that I could ever muster up.
Some people spend their whole lives creating themselves, to realize that when they die, it’s all gone. Perhaps are they not let into heaven because there is nothing of them there on that day? I don't know.
I think that that the point I am at right now is maybe not the surrender point of this process but the acceptance point. Am I going to allow myself to be whom Jesus made me? What if I don't get to share my deep, epic thoughts with others, but listen the rest of my life? What if God want me to be ridiculously wealthily? What if he wants me to do things that 'I am not called to'? What if I am supposed to die slowly? What if I am suppose to stay in shitty mediocre Christianity and find out some way to be of one pure and holy passion in this lukewarm sinkhole? What if I don't like what that Lindsey looks like? It's a promise that I will be hated and spit on and mocked and that I won't be thought of highly and that my humility will be painfully present in everything I do. This is what I sign up for when I flippantly say that I am child of God, trying to follow Jesus. These words fly out of my mouth so easily, perhaps they should come with far more reservation and weight and joy and passion.
There is so much release when there are moments when I am absolutely living in the spirit. They are the heights and depths of my soul and they are the moments when I am truly living. They never fail me even though sometimes I feel as though I am going to explode. It’s the moments when I avoid living that I hate life the most. It’s when I slip into brainless mediocrity and myself that I implode with tension and sadness and apathy.
So what does all of this verbiage actually look like in my life? Most of the time it is simply left in the moment of tension and never actually explored in reality. I usually sit and scream at people and events and conversations and ideals, but not audibly, in my soul. In these moments all I want to do is go to a mountain and scream until I have no physical strength left and then I want to lay down and sob until collapse and then I want to scream pray and then fall asleep for a long period of time. I want to be with other people like me more than anything. I want to be the people that want Jesus 24/7 but are completely honest with their humanity and live in the tensions of a Jesus in human skin. I want to leave everyone I know. I want to meet a monastery or a nunnery or a radical community where Jesus isn't a pet side project, he is an obsession. I want to be with people who encourage my faith, push me into God, and force me to image the impossible. I don't want to suppress it all, pushing it down to make room for lame ass conversations that rot at the very meaning of life. I don't want to be frustrated with Christians, I just want to be obsessed with Jesus and be with people who are completely obsessed.
I realize that all of these words might sound selfish, but future self, know that I love people, dearly with most of my heart, but Jesus is always more beautiful and always more perfect and I trust him so much more.
I don't know what to do with this mess of it all.
If you are creepy and read my blog, whatever, but if your heart aches for this same experience, lets run away to a mountain or a cliff or a beach and scream, cry, pray and sleep in the crazy vastness of God, forgetting all that we are because we are so wrapped in his presence.
2.27.2007
..mind
Here is an update blog. These are always tradgectly feeble attempts at recounting the events and massive movements of God in my life over the last few days. My bones are tired and I don't want to do this but someday I will be able to look back and understand another small portion of God's infinate love for me. I think I feel like an apostle of Christ right now, trying to figure out just what's most important to recount three entire years with Jesus. My soul is burdened for them in that task.
These are my thoughts:
The last few days, with the exception of Saturday, have been very intense in their nature. I have experienced so much of God, in so many ways, that I came to Saturday and felt as though I had to 'take a break' from God because I couldn't handle it anymore. My prayer is that God will help me die enough to myself that I can experience so much more of the fullness of God.
John Swanger and Dana and I had a very intense conversation about Mars Hill at Scum on Tuesday. I found myself coming back to the pure nature of Jesus but I existed so much in the intensity of that conversation. I felt so hurt along with John and Dana because of things stemming from Mars Hill but so hurt also when she said, "I hate, hate, hate Mark Driscoll." This has caused me to question my thinking on the topic, in a constructive and healthy way and it has been part of my mental dialog for a week now. I am asking for the mind of Christ on this issue, that I might rejoice in the preaching of the gospel in any context. I have a feeling that I am going to be working through this tension for a while and to attend any other church would be to avoid it, and that is a sign of my resistance to growth. I want to remain in this struggle and I want Jesus to lift me out of it in his time.
Life has happened, many conversations have surged into my life, leaving a wake of beautiful reconciliation, passion, and dreams. I feel incredibally blessed with the heart God has given me, the people that he has placed in my life and the opprotunities he is placing in my path.
I think that I am learning what radical trust looks like. I am learning to respond to the movement of God in my life and dreaming big dreams because my God is a big God.
I have learned so much more than this mere post and I have sadly forgetten it. Perhaps it has simple seeped from the realm of my brain and into the marrow of my bones and the flesh of my heart and I am not learning them anymore, but living them. I think that this hope might be slightly idealistic though.
These are my thoughts:
The last few days, with the exception of Saturday, have been very intense in their nature. I have experienced so much of God, in so many ways, that I came to Saturday and felt as though I had to 'take a break' from God because I couldn't handle it anymore. My prayer is that God will help me die enough to myself that I can experience so much more of the fullness of God.
John Swanger and Dana and I had a very intense conversation about Mars Hill at Scum on Tuesday. I found myself coming back to the pure nature of Jesus but I existed so much in the intensity of that conversation. I felt so hurt along with John and Dana because of things stemming from Mars Hill but so hurt also when she said, "I hate, hate, hate Mark Driscoll." This has caused me to question my thinking on the topic, in a constructive and healthy way and it has been part of my mental dialog for a week now. I am asking for the mind of Christ on this issue, that I might rejoice in the preaching of the gospel in any context. I have a feeling that I am going to be working through this tension for a while and to attend any other church would be to avoid it, and that is a sign of my resistance to growth. I want to remain in this struggle and I want Jesus to lift me out of it in his time.
Life has happened, many conversations have surged into my life, leaving a wake of beautiful reconciliation, passion, and dreams. I feel incredibally blessed with the heart God has given me, the people that he has placed in my life and the opprotunities he is placing in my path.
I think that I am learning what radical trust looks like. I am learning to respond to the movement of God in my life and dreaming big dreams because my God is a big God.
I have learned so much more than this mere post and I have sadly forgetten it. Perhaps it has simple seeped from the realm of my brain and into the marrow of my bones and the flesh of my heart and I am not learning them anymore, but living them. I think that this hope might be slightly idealistic though.
2.18.2007
..gangs
I just got back from watching Green Street Hooligans. It's violent and overly bloody but brings up a lot of the sociological issues of gangs that I was confronted with this summer and also the personal struggles I have been dealing with currently. Saying that, I think that it was good movie.
Gangs are very interesting to me. I think that they are the ultimate expression of our need to be needed and our need to be a part of something. They are a group of people who have found a way to unite around a purpose, and through that community, find solidarity in the 'us'/'them' approach to life and also in their own personal role in the group. It fulfills the deepest longing to be a person of substance and of belonging because it is the entirety of their existence.
I saw the heart wrenching effects of this over the summer. Walking into it I knew little about gangs, the slang, the dress, or the lifestyle but soon realized that it was something so much more. It is an identity and a security and a form of love that is not being me anywhere else. I talked to kids who were joining simply because they had no where else too go, like the vortex of the gang tasted like some sort of parental love to them. For children starving for place, substance, and love gangs are an easy solution with a high turn over rate.
But what is this need? What is this basic pangs of being human that make us all go to extreme lengths to find love and place and purpose. I try to fill my pangs with friends, and interests, and concepts, and I am always left grasping for something more. I am not satisfied and I attempt to join gangs continually. I am most likely in several right as we speak. They are entities that clamor for my heart, who want all of it and will not be satisfied with just a chunk. Even though some of them are beautiful, great things, their control in my life is deadly and often leaves me feeling like I have been through battle.
I want to join a gang with a boyfriend, I want to have place and purpose and love through that. I want to belong to someone and I want to be inseparable with them in our purpose. That would feel amazing.
I want to join a gang in Christian ministry. I want to be in a club of Christians and be on the cutting edge of God's work, astonishing people with the amazing things that we are doing. Deep down, I want to make a name for myself for how much I do for God. Parts of me want to be in this gang.
But playing out the thoughts of these two gangs in my life I find that I am still searching for something more. The pining for fulfillment is crippling at times and I want to know the way to have it go away, so that I can say I am satisfied with life and be content with all of it for once.
Laying here, I know the pat answer: Jesus. I can simply quit now and this would be nicely wrapped in a Christian box and I could feel great about everything. But that's not actually the way I feel. I feel clueless on how the fuck I am suppose to do that. How am I suppose to be completely satisfied with Christ? What does that actually, really, really look like? It would be easy in a monastery I think, no earthly distractions to loose focus on. I know the answer but I don't know how to get there and because of that I feel so incredibly alone right now. I could give up and accept a boyfriend, Christian ministry, or whatever else my heart might desire but I don't want it. I just want Jesus but I don't know what that looks like and I am sad as I type this and I wish I had a simple Christian answer that made me feel better, that would be lovely. I wish I did but I am guess I don't I suppose because Jesus is better than Christianity and I need that to be true if I am going to do this.
Oswald Chambers. Daily Thoughts for Disciples. February 14.
I want to ask a very personal question- How much do you want to be delivered from? You say, "I want to be delivered from wrongdoing"- then you don't need to come to Jesus Christ. "I want to walk in the right way according to the judgment of society"- then you don't need Jesus Christ. But some heart cries out- "I want, God knows I want, that Jesus Christ should do in me all He has said He would do." How many of us 'want' like that? God grant that this want may increase until it swamps every other desire of heart and life. Oh, the patience, the gentleness, the longing of the Lord Jesus after lives, and yet people are turning this way and that, and even saint who once knew Him are turning aside, their eyes are fixed on other things, on the blessings that come from the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and have forgotten the Baptizer Himself.
Gangs are very interesting to me. I think that they are the ultimate expression of our need to be needed and our need to be a part of something. They are a group of people who have found a way to unite around a purpose, and through that community, find solidarity in the 'us'/'them' approach to life and also in their own personal role in the group. It fulfills the deepest longing to be a person of substance and of belonging because it is the entirety of their existence.
I saw the heart wrenching effects of this over the summer. Walking into it I knew little about gangs, the slang, the dress, or the lifestyle but soon realized that it was something so much more. It is an identity and a security and a form of love that is not being me anywhere else. I talked to kids who were joining simply because they had no where else too go, like the vortex of the gang tasted like some sort of parental love to them. For children starving for place, substance, and love gangs are an easy solution with a high turn over rate.
But what is this need? What is this basic pangs of being human that make us all go to extreme lengths to find love and place and purpose. I try to fill my pangs with friends, and interests, and concepts, and I am always left grasping for something more. I am not satisfied and I attempt to join gangs continually. I am most likely in several right as we speak. They are entities that clamor for my heart, who want all of it and will not be satisfied with just a chunk. Even though some of them are beautiful, great things, their control in my life is deadly and often leaves me feeling like I have been through battle.
I want to join a gang with a boyfriend, I want to have place and purpose and love through that. I want to belong to someone and I want to be inseparable with them in our purpose. That would feel amazing.
I want to join a gang in Christian ministry. I want to be in a club of Christians and be on the cutting edge of God's work, astonishing people with the amazing things that we are doing. Deep down, I want to make a name for myself for how much I do for God. Parts of me want to be in this gang.
But playing out the thoughts of these two gangs in my life I find that I am still searching for something more. The pining for fulfillment is crippling at times and I want to know the way to have it go away, so that I can say I am satisfied with life and be content with all of it for once.
Laying here, I know the pat answer: Jesus. I can simply quit now and this would be nicely wrapped in a Christian box and I could feel great about everything. But that's not actually the way I feel. I feel clueless on how the fuck I am suppose to do that. How am I suppose to be completely satisfied with Christ? What does that actually, really, really look like? It would be easy in a monastery I think, no earthly distractions to loose focus on. I know the answer but I don't know how to get there and because of that I feel so incredibly alone right now. I could give up and accept a boyfriend, Christian ministry, or whatever else my heart might desire but I don't want it. I just want Jesus but I don't know what that looks like and I am sad as I type this and I wish I had a simple Christian answer that made me feel better, that would be lovely. I wish I did but I am guess I don't I suppose because Jesus is better than Christianity and I need that to be true if I am going to do this.
Oswald Chambers. Daily Thoughts for Disciples. February 14.
I want to ask a very personal question- How much do you want to be delivered from? You say, "I want to be delivered from wrongdoing"- then you don't need to come to Jesus Christ. "I want to walk in the right way according to the judgment of society"- then you don't need Jesus Christ. But some heart cries out- "I want, God knows I want, that Jesus Christ should do in me all He has said He would do." How many of us 'want' like that? God grant that this want may increase until it swamps every other desire of heart and life. Oh, the patience, the gentleness, the longing of the Lord Jesus after lives, and yet people are turning this way and that, and even saint who once knew Him are turning aside, their eyes are fixed on other things, on the blessings that come from the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and have forgotten the Baptizer Himself.
2.10.2007
..grace
I think I am learning the freedom of living a life as a creature of grace.
I had a friend confront me about the way I interact with people and because it was wrapped in love, I was able to receive the truth in her words. In my explanation as to why I do the things I do I realized that I am so broken and skill-less when it comes to my compentancy in relationships. I don't have a past filled with examples of great friendship and I don't know what works well and what doesn't in most situations. I don't think I am completely social invalid but at the core of my being there are definitely insecurities about who I am in relationship to other people.
The beautiful realization that all of this has brought me is the depths of God's grace and how there is so much freedom as a result of living in that grace. I can sit on a couch and explain why I am so fucked up and hurt and then exist in that reality, not attempting to fix myself. I don't want to fix myself. That is an endless cycle of self-realization and pointless agony because in the end, I can't. I can do nothing to change myself. The only thing that I can do is be open and willing to let the Jesus inside of me reveal who I am and stand in the huge cravases of my inadequancy.
This gives my the ultimate freedom to not be chained to myself anymore. Even though I am broken and terribly screwed up, I no longer live, Christ lives in me and because of that I don't have to remain in my turmoil and tension. I can be free to be who I am, relying on the blood of Christ in my life, to be everything I am not. This is a great relief and it make me breath a little bit deeper and love a little bit more and understand grace through the power of vulnerability.
Thank you, friend, for being honest with me. I experienced a lot of Jesus through you and I think that I am so much more free to explore to painful but rewarding world of friendship through the grace of God.
I had a friend confront me about the way I interact with people and because it was wrapped in love, I was able to receive the truth in her words. In my explanation as to why I do the things I do I realized that I am so broken and skill-less when it comes to my compentancy in relationships. I don't have a past filled with examples of great friendship and I don't know what works well and what doesn't in most situations. I don't think I am completely social invalid but at the core of my being there are definitely insecurities about who I am in relationship to other people.
The beautiful realization that all of this has brought me is the depths of God's grace and how there is so much freedom as a result of living in that grace. I can sit on a couch and explain why I am so fucked up and hurt and then exist in that reality, not attempting to fix myself. I don't want to fix myself. That is an endless cycle of self-realization and pointless agony because in the end, I can't. I can do nothing to change myself. The only thing that I can do is be open and willing to let the Jesus inside of me reveal who I am and stand in the huge cravases of my inadequancy.
This gives my the ultimate freedom to not be chained to myself anymore. Even though I am broken and terribly screwed up, I no longer live, Christ lives in me and because of that I don't have to remain in my turmoil and tension. I can be free to be who I am, relying on the blood of Christ in my life, to be everything I am not. This is a great relief and it make me breath a little bit deeper and love a little bit more and understand grace through the power of vulnerability.
Thank you, friend, for being honest with me. I experienced a lot of Jesus through you and I think that I am so much more free to explore to painful but rewarding world of friendship through the grace of God.
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