What I Want Is Not What I Want

It's a really ordinary occurrence for people to want something more or less than they want something else.  It's also ordinary for those two priorities to be the reverse of what they should be.

It's called being human.
...

To stay with God, or be like God (Gen 3:4-6).
To please God, or be better than others (Gen 4:8-9)
To have a God that is real, or to have a God you can touch (Ex 32:7-8)
To let Jesus be who He is, or to make Jesus who you want Him to be (Mt 16:21-23)
And so on, and so on, and so forth.
...

It is a rather normal story.  People want something, but they want it to be a particular way.  So, they take what they want that actually exists and they distort it.  They go about it the wrong way.

They maim something that is essentially good by trying to make it more of what they want and less of what it is.

It's a perpetual sin of humanity.
...

And I'm no less guilty of it than anyone else.  Over and over again, whether in relationships or friendships or jobs or opportunities or responsibilities or social events, I have tried to make something in my life into more of what I wanted it to be when it wasn't possible.

And I have done the same thing with God over and over again.
...

There have been many many times in my life where I have sought rearranging my life to look more the way Jesus would want it to look.  I've wanted to care more about other people and less about myself.  I've wanted to have more discipline and spend time doing productive healthy things and less time being lethargic and lazy.  I've wanted...

The list goes on.  And some of those things I have succeeded at being better at, even if only mildly better.  But progress has been made in some respects.  And it other respects I have only succeeded in failing miserably more times than I thought possible.

Because it is hard to want what Jesus wants for us because it looks so freaking awful compared to what we want for us.
...

That's what it comes down to isn't it?  We look at these two pictures painted for us of what our lives are supposed to look like.  We look at our painting of our lives.  And it isn't like Jesus isn't involved or influential in that painting.  He is in that painting because we are (at least a little) committed to Him.

But in that painting of our lives we are the artist.

We are the one making creative decisions and we are the one painting the settings and overall tone of the piece while Jesus stands beside us in front of the canvas making the occasional suggestion of color shade or hue.  We are in control, and boy oh boy do we love how that painting turns out every time.
...

But that isn't how it works!  The fact is that what our soul's long for is to have the life that resembles the painting Christ paints of our lives.  We were created to live in that life, and so everything else, no matter how great we think it looks, will make us feel like we aren't where we are supposed to be.

We will have no peace.
...

Christ is the artist of life, and He is the one who paints our story on the canvas as we stand next to Him making the occasional suggestion.  His painting will be a life that reflects His story because no one knows His story better than He does.

And His story transcends ours.
...

We are where we are because Christ has brought us or allowed us to get this far.  But so much of what we experience will be unsatisfying and frustrating and painful if we should try to change our lives from what they are meant to be into what we would rather have them be.

Because at the end of the day we aren't aware of what it is that we really want.
...

"To praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

- St. Augustine
...

Peace.

Sparks

I am in a good place now.  But I think good times are actually the best times to look back on the not-so-good times an see things we didn't have the capability to see in those moments because pain was too great or apathy too powerful.

This blog is about one of those musings.
...

When things are bad and I feel very stale and I experience a complicated mix of emotions.

Self-pity.  Loathing.  Worthlessness.  Frustration.  Bitterness.  Cynicism.  Sadness.

And these all mix together because of my general inability to remove myself from the stale place in which I sit.  Something about my life is very discomforting in these times.  Could be an estranged relationship that is hurting my soul, or a serious lack of productiveness, or a lack of meaningful friendships, or a surplus of events where my heart is indulging itself in not-so-healthy ways.
...

And it doesn't really matter what the cataylst to my stale state is.  Truth be told, the only relevant information is that I exist there, and that pulling myself out of it feels impossible.

Not only do I feel apathetic and indifferent to fixing and adjusting my life, but I often feel completely inadequate or literally incapable of doing so.

Now a helpful realization in those moments would be to remember that I do nothing alone.  I am consistently doing things in a community of people which I am close to and ultimately God is incredibly invested in my life and every thing that is taking place.  Big or small.  Good or bad.

He is there working.  He is there speaking.  He is there teaching.
...

And that becomes part of my problem as well.  Not that God is working in such powerful and influential ways, but that my mind refuses to accept that and embrace the joy that should bring.  Instead, I have a monumental amount of guilt for not "having it all together."

[SIDENOTE - Guilt sucks.]

Anyways, in the moments where I feel shame and guilt for the amount, and often the specific kind, of brokenness in my life, presenting myself before God is the last thing my guilt-ridden body wants.
...

However, furthering the estrangement from God in my life by distancing myself from Him is the LAST thing my soul wants.  Even if I have driven the stake between us deeper by my own sin and actions, my soul and my spirit deeply long for God and His love even if my body doesn't.  That is why everything hurts as deeply as it does.

My soul is estranged from God.  And I have furthered that estrangement with my actions or circumstances.  It's actually a rather common story.  But that is how the bad times begin to feel worse, without a whole lot happening.
...

What is interesting to me, is that when I am removed from those rougher times, I muse back about how I did engage God when I had the courage to pursue Him.

Typically, I remember myself crying out for Him.  Screaming at the top of my lungs, asking Him to please come and save me from this circumstance.  To burst in and shine a blinding light on me as I sit in a shadowy corner.

I ask for God to explode around me so that I can know He is there.  So I can see His light in my life.

But rarely is that how things actually go.
...

Seeing God's light in your life is essentially seeing things happen that are good and seeing the kinds of things that give us hope and remind us that God is good and doing good things all the time in our lives even when we are moving in directions we probably shouldn't be.

But we don't need explosions to happen around us so we can see that light!  It may feel that way in the bad times, but that is just because in those moments we don't have the eyes to see anything less that a monumental explosion.

We don't see the sparks.
...

But that is exactly how I think the majority of God's light in our life actually shows up.

Sparks.
...

I can think back to seasons in my life where I was stale.  And I mean seriously seriously stale.  And I can see, in retrospect, God's light sparking all over the place in my life.  Consistently.  But I didn't see it in the moment.  And if I did, I didn't appreciate it.

Because what I wanted was for everything to change.  And that would have taken an explosion.
...

But my lack of satisfaction with the way God was working doesn't mean that He wasn't.  He was.

The fact is, that is how God works.  In lots and lots of powerful little ways.

Because when something is dead and dry, all it takes is a spark to catch it.  A spark will cause the whole thing to burn.

And normally, in the rough times, we are dead and dry.  And we feel it.
...

Take hope.  Because God's Kingdom spreads like a mustard seed and His light shows up in sparks.

And His love is bigger and everything you see.

And you are in it.
...

Peace.