Time Numbs

I've heard people say, "Time heals all wounds."  I don't think that is true.

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I have been through my fair share of painful and tough times.  I don't think time has ever helped me heal over the things that have happened, it had just numbed me from feeling the same fresh and familiar pain. Time has made me apathetic.  

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I don't think time heals; I think it just numbs us.  I don't feel like I am healing.  I am just becoming numb.

Summer, Summer

So that bittersweet summer I was talking about is here. It certainly does have its ups and downs.

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I have been pretty busy with my internship at Rivertree and working in the theater at Malone. Sunday was the day I moved in to Gram's here back at Canton. I really enjoy living here at Gram's and it feels good to be back in Canton. Something about western PA just didn't feel like it was as much home as Canton is to me now. It's hard to explain. It is almost like outside of my family and a small handful of friends and people from high school, there isn't anything (or anyone) for me out there. Back here is another family and whole lot of friends. This is becoming home more and more as time passes. Its a somewhat difficult transition but I do like it.

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Monday I went down to the theater and got my timecard. Jim (my boss at the theater) gave me the summary of everything that needs to be done once the summer is over. The best thing about that gig is that I can go down there whenever it is convenient to me. I have keys to get in and I know what needs to be done... just gotta do it.

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I started at Rivertree on tuesday. Tuesday and wednesday were consumed by time spent with Toby (the guy I work with at Rivertree) and time spent at the church in general. It was all really awesome. I got the tour of the building and did some brainstorming with Toby about what all I am going to be involved in this summer. I got to meet a ton of people on staff, about 1/6 of whose names I remember. Everyone has been really awesome. Then I had a brainstorming meeting with some others on staff, which was a cool experience. Me and Toby ended the first day by going to the batting cages and just talking some more about my assignments this summer.

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Wednesday me and Toby went to a seminar in Hartville about small groups and how they should look in churches if they are going to change lives. I was able to take some cool things away from the 7 hours I was there. Later that night I went to a leadership meeting about how to have conversations with people about Jesus and faith if the other person doesn't have any particular religious interest. I hate to talk about evangelism sometimes because there is almost this inherent judgment that comes with the word "evangelism" that I really try to avoid. But I suppose if you have the right kind of established relationship with the person that you are talking to then everything would be okay. That's kinda what the meeting was about. It was good.

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Yesterday I just went to Malone and worked at the theater for most of the day. Gonna try to do the same today. Yesterday did have an awesomely pleasant surprise. Nikki came to visit Tim and me and her got to just hang out for a couple hours here at Gram's. Really cool. Good times.

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I am reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. I like it a lot so far. Once I get more into it I might blog more about it. There are a small handful of books I want to read this summer:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis,

Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus,

Mere Christianity (rereading it) by C.S. Lewis,

Sex God by Rob Bell,

Starving Jesus by Craig Gross,

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren

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Well this is just a boring update. Maybe I'll have something more to say soon. Keep in touch and God Bless

-Nick

Peace

God grant me peace.

I don't want to want, I just want to be in your will.  I know if your will is my will then I may have peace.  I dont want to want anymore.  I'd just like some peace.

I am terrified when I say "peace" what I really mean is happiness.  For some reason it just seems so selfish for me to ask you for happiness.  That seems too bias; seems to lack objectivity.  I hope that is not what I mean.  

I hope I can have a level of happiness in my life knowing that I am doing your will and I am at peace with that.  Maybe they are complimentary, or maybe I'm just phrasing things in a clever way to make myself feel better.  

I do want to be happy, but if that's not really a good thing to ask for I would settle for some peace.  If peace is not a good thing to ask for... then I guess I'll wait till I'm in a position to ask for something better.  Maybe objectivity in my own introspection.  Who knows, maybe I have too much of that as it is.

Help.  Give me whatever you know I need.  We both know I can't decide what that is.

Peace, God Bless

The Problem of Prayer

I was talking to a friend of mine from back home the other day about how I have a very heady and over-sensible faith.

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I didn't grow up in the church so before I became a Christian when I was around 15 I wasn't bringing any preconceived notions or perceptions of who God was with me. I didn't grow up being spoon fed anything about God or Christianity; God was rarely, if ever, a topic of discussion in my house.

With that being the case, hopefully you can sympathize with the fact that everything about the faith has always had to make sense to me, in one way or another. That doesn't mean that I have to understand why things happen and stuff like that. It just means that whenever I started to take the faith seriously I had a thought process that went something like this: "If this is going to be my religion and this is going to be my faith, then it is going to mean something to me. It doesn't make any sense to even bother with this whole deal unless this is something that I'm going to really let impact me." At that point, it didn't make any sense to me to start believing and investing who I was as a person in something that didn't teach things that resonated with me as true. Luckily, the gospel has turned out to be the most relevant entity I have ever been exposed to.

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The main thing my friend and I were talking about was how I have trouble with prayer sometimes (maybe a little more than sometimes).

I have a really hard time sometimes because I get to the point where I feel like I "know" this is true or that is true. I "know" God is with me and He loves me and He isn't going to ever give me anything I can't make it through. If that is the case, then it doesn't even matter what this whole sucky thing I am dealing with right now is, because it will pan out and ill be okay, regardless of the result.

You can imagine that if I honestly look at things that way on a consistent basis, sometimes prayer isn't what it should be for me. If I "know" all of that then I always seem to slip into this mindset where I think it can seem so pointless to pray and look for encouragement and such. I wind up telling myself that I just need to suck it up and keep going and I'll be okay. At the end of the day, God will be with me and things will be fine regardless of how bad things hurt. It doesn't even matter the outcome of the situation because I "know" He will take care of me. I just "know."

That kind of approach to prayer can really hurt the relationship with me and God; it almost renders prayer useless, at least when I'm looking for God to give me comfort and just be there for me like He loves me.

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I "know" God loves me, and that might even be another issue in the situation. It is almost like I have so much confidence in God that I feel that every time I get upset or get down on myself that it is foolish to take it to God because I already know He loves me and asking Him "why?" isn't going to get me anywhere. Maybe I'll never know why, and I'm okay with that. Maybe I won't know why for a long long time, and I'm okay with that too. Maybe the answer to why is simply that we are in a fallen world and God's will is not always done, but even then I "know" that He will work through the worst situations I ever experience.

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The obvious response in these situations, it looks like, is just to praise God even when I'm hurt and upset and feel like what's happening doesn't make sense. The sad fact is that I am not that strong. I am too bitter and proud to praise God during my struggles.

As hypocritical as ever, I can "know" God will lead me through and take care of me but simultaneously refuse to praise Him until He literally does it.

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There is just something about that that doesn't seem right to me. It seems like I'm not doing things the right way somewhere along the path. Maybe this just makes me normal, maybe this is an issue many Christians struggle with and work through. Maybe my conviction just gets the better of me when I feel like my prayer life isn't what it should be. I say that because sometimes it really doesn't feel like it should; it lacks the genuineness I want between me and my Father.

Maybe this really is normal, but good God it sure does hurt.

Heaven forbid I pray about it... right?

Just An Update

Today is my birthday. It doesn't feel very special. That seems sad.  I'm 20. Teen years are gone.

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I want to start writing more. I want to write stories and plays again. I miss them.

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I want to act more in the future. I miss it. I don't miss the process sometimes, but I miss performing. I miss some of the people.

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Things aren't fantastic right now. Things are really hard. They suck pretty bad some days.

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Finals are coming up. I'm not really worried about them.

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School is almost over. It is one of the most bittersweet situations I may have ever experienced it.  I think it will be good and so hard at the same time. That's life.

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Summer is almost here. Summer should be good. Once I really get into the swing of things I think it is going to be great. It will be tough in the beginning.

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God is God.  Things don't make sense.  That is life.  God is God and life is life.  I wish I had the eyes to really see the blessings in my life whenever all I can seem to focus on are the things that hurt.  I know He is here.  I know He is here.  Sometimes I just don't see it.

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Thanks for being in my life.  If you read my blog, chances are you matter a lot to me because I've asked you to read.  Blog reading is not as popular a pastime at Malone as a blogger might hope.  If you're reading this then you matter to me, most likely.  Thanks for being there.

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God Bless

Top 5 Fears

Does admitting your fears to someone make you vulnerable?  Does it mean you are just really good friends with them?  Maybe it's both.  I mean, I have always thought that the closer you are with a person the more vulnerable you become within that relationship.

In any case, I've decided to blog my top 5 fears.  Maybe this means that I'm trying to become closer to you, my faithful blog readers.  Maybe I'm trying to take that "next step" in the relationship.  Stop me if I'm going too fast; I wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

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Number 5 - Big things.  I am talking really really big things.  Skyscrapers don't scare me; for some reason I trust them.  But I do live near a nuclear power plant back home in PA.  There are these gigantic smokestacks that are connected to the plant.  Whenever I drive by these awkward shaped smoke stacks I immediately become uncomfortable.  It's kinda like I'm riding a roller coaster only instead of going down a big hill I think the stack is going to fall on me and kill me.  It's a slightly less gratifying experience.

Number 4- Bugs.  I hate bugs.  Not the individual fly that is buzzing around the room.  But I hate the thought of bugs on me or surrounding me.  I knew watching those specials on bees on National Geographic when I was a kid was going to come back to get me... I hate gross, nasty-looking bugs.

Number 3 - The ocean.  This is kinda connected to number 5, since the main reason I am TERRIFIED of the ocean is because it is so big.  You cannot trust the ocean.  I repeat, you CANNOT trust it.  You can't even see all the stuff that is in it!  There are animals and stuff in the ocean that are so big.  Whales scare the crap out of me.  They are just so big that they could come out of the water and smash me and wouldn't even notice or care.  Stupid whales.  If I was on an awesome cruise ship with a ton of other people I might feel better, but thats no guarantee either.  Ever hear of the Titanic?  Leo DiCaprio is more than willing to educate you if you haven't.

Number 2 - Family dying.  This might be a surprise to some of you considering I am not as close to my immediate family as so many people here at Malone are.  Even still, the thought of either of my parents or my sister dying is a scary scary thought for me.  When I would have wicked bad anxiety attacks as a kid, the big fear that always took me over was that either my sister or one of my parents would die.  If I ever have a family of my own, I'm sure this fear will shift so that they are part of the focus as well.  I'm not trying to say that pretty much everyone doesn't share this fear, but I guess because for such a long time it was something that crossed my mind so frequently that it is kinda imprinted on my mind.

Number 1 - God will call me to do something that I really don't want to do and it will cost me the people that mean the most to me.  This is possibly the most selfish fear that I think anyone could possibly have. Nice job Nick...

I always think about this time in high school that I stood up for the right thing and it made a lot of people who I was pretty close to upset.  Really upset.  I guess that I have this fear that God's call for my life is not necessarily going to connected to happiness.  Do I believe God wants us to be happy? Absolutely.  Do I believe that God gives some people a calling and puts them in places to be his hands and feet in ways that are not particularly filled with joy?  Absolutely.  God's will is ultimately what is best, I know this.  I just don't want to move forward before I'm ready; I don't want to leave the people who mean so much to me behind.  But if God tells me that I'm ready, then I'm ready.  I know I'll be okay in any situation God puts me in, it is just really easy to get so wrapped up in the people and environment we are always around that we can't imagine anything else being as stable or filled with blessings as this.  That kind of thinking is not very sound; I mean, who knows how amazing and unpredictable my future is.  

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But I guess that is what makes a fear a fear; the whole part that it is not necessarily rational.

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Fears are a funny funny thing.  The more and more I talk about them, the less and less threatening they seem.  Even if they don't make sense, they are a part of who I am for the time being.

"Hi, I'm Nick."

"Hi Nick." (In unison)

"I'm a 19 year old college kid afraid of big smokestacks, bugs, the ocean, my parents dying, and God's call for me."

(Applause)

Find Joy

I think it is safe to say that most things in this world are not as they should be. In fact, the only thing that may have ever come into this world and been, in and of itself, the way it should be, was Jesus. But Jesus was an "after the fact" kind of perfect.

Jesus came into a world that was not the way it was supposed to be precisely because it was not what it was supposed to be. Had the world never fallen and everything been perfect, then there would have been no use for a perfect messiah who was willing to sacrifice himself on a cross to bring reconciliation to this anything-but-perfect world.
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I go through all of that to say that I think a lot of us can resonate with the fact that living in a fallen world is not always a good time.

In fact, it sucks pretty bad considering the alternative of living in a perfect world where love abounds and we can take walks with God. In any case, I have found that finding joy, real sustained coherent and untainted joy, is very very difficult.
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In all honesty, it may be impossible to get the kind of joy I just described depending on how you define "untainted." What I mean when I say that is that I find it very difficult to reach situations or circumstances where I feel joy, and no contradictory emotions in the background while experiencing that joy.

Now, that may very well be related to the fact that I am a very heady person and I think about things too much or I worry about things I know are coming too often and refuse to just "live in the moment." And I'm sure there is some truth in each of those critiques.

Even still, I think that joy is just not the default position in this world; and it has not been for a long long time. I think that the world as we know it will never have joy as its default emotion or feeling people experience (at least not without a second coming or two. wink.).
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But who am I to say what anyone else's default position is? I can speak from experience that I think my default position is actually a mesh of a few different emotions: loneliness, indifference, apathy, melancholy, and maybe even frustration.

I don't always experience them simultaneously. Sometimes it can pure loneliness (and boy, do those days suck. It just seems so contradictory to live in a dorm of over 100 same-age guys and feel isolated or lonely. That irony in itself can be frustrating. Whoops, I forgot I was still talking about loneliness, ha). Sometimes it can be a mix of melancholy and indifference or apathy. It really is depressing to think about this is where people have fallen to now.

Humans are these glorious creations of God who have the capacity to love and experience relationships and affection more than anything else, and happiness does not seem to be an emotion we sustain because doing it independently instead of interdependently is just so hard.
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All that having been said, the point is that in this world we have to find joy. We need to search high and low, check the dumpsters, look between the couch cushions, and check under the bed to find joy. Rarely, does joy just come us and present itself as this feeling without a catalyst.

And finding joy can be exhausting.
It can be hard.
It can be depressing.
It can be riddled with failure.
It can be anything but joyous.

Regardless, it is far better than our other choices we have to pick from.
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Although finding joy can be so hard, when you do find it, it feels like the best decision you ever made. Joy is priceless, so go and find it.
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"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy -- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."

-Jude 1:24-25

Content Is Not In The Cards

I have had quite a few amazing conversations in my life thus far. The best of those conversations have actually come in only the last year and a half. One of the things I am actually looking forward to the most for the rest of my life are some of the amazing conversations I'm going to have with people.
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Lately, I have been having a lot of conversations with mentors, professors, and peers about being content. The whole idea behind being content has been somewhat troubling for me.
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Before we go any further, it is best we look at what I mean when I say the ever controversial word content.

Dictionary.com defines content as "satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else."
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A lot of my friends here at school tell me that one of their biggest struggles they go through is that they are just trying to be content with what God has given them to this point. This battle with contentment is something I really do see often here on this Christian campus. Interestingly enough, the majority of the time the people who talk to me about this the most are girls. I think that may have something to do with the fact it is hard, in our culture nowadays, not to desire having a (romantic) relationship be a part of our self-identity. Whenever we don't have that relationship with someone but really want it, then it can be hard to have that satisfaction in what we have and who we are. It can seem damn near impossible to not desire more than just the status quo of what we have.

On a side note, I know that guys deal with the same things on a regular basis; it just is not something that we discuss in quite the same way, but I think the issue is just as present.
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Regardless of relationships being an issue or not, I know that being content, in general, has always been a bit of an issue for me. Recently, I had a discussion with someone that sort of opened my eyes as to why being content is just not in the cards for me.

I am too reflective, ambitious, restless, and too much of an idealist to ever really achieve being content.
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Having the kind of personality I do, it is almost impossible to have any kind of sustained satisfaction in who I am or what I have. I always want things to be better or want to pursue something more challenging or rewarding. I think about the way things are or have been and think that if the world was not such a fallen sinful place then people could be so much better off; love wold be so much more a part of our world. This idea of looking at my life and saying "Yep, I'm cool with all of this. I like the world and myself just the way they are." is just not something I can do. I cannot sustain this overall satisfaction with the way things are.
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I think this is where things get confusing, because I am so happy I am reflective, ambitious, and an idealist. Those are key aspects of my personality and I think they are some of my best qualities. But when you combine them altogether in one person it can be hard for me to actually maintain contentment as an emotion.
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One thing I do want to clarify is that I believe I am going to have a truly happy life. I believe I will one day have an amazing family and a profession where I do feel like i interact with people and make a difference; I believe my work will truly be life-giving for me. I don't mean to imply that I wont ever have joy in my life, but the idea of an overall satisfaction just doesn't jive with who I am. I care about the details and the big picture at the same time too much to be satisfied. But I do believe that my life is going to be so filled with joy that it makes me smile just to think about it.
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I have always been able to look at things and say, "Yes, this is really good. But... if we did not live in a fallen world, or if things were just a little different, this could all be so much better." I am truly greatful I can do that, I think it is a way to approach things that helps me know what I stand for in a lot of situations. But at the same time, always being convicted about things and desiring things to be better for myself and (more importantly) others can take a toll on you. I know it does on me.

I look around at some of my friends and I wonder, "Why can't I just be a 19 year old kid like the everyone else and just piss around and not care and have a good time? Why do I care like I do?" This drought of satisfaction can be very draining.

It wears me down.
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I'm glad I care about the homeless guys I eat dinner with a couple times a week. I'm glad I am a pacifist and a feminist and that I think daily whether how I treat my friends is how Christ treated his friends. And I'm glad when I fall terribly short that it matters to me. I am glad I am everything but indifferent.
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Sometimes I wonder whether or not contentment is an emotion Chirstians should become accustomed to feeling. I know that being content is essentially contrary to the kind of personality I have, and I know that it takes a serious toll on my emotions. I also know I wouldn't have it any other way.
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Limited contentment is a good thing; it helps prevent people from becoming basketcases like me. I think being able to appreciate where you are on the ladder of life and understanding that God is working on you in this particular stage of life is a great great thing. That kind of understanding is valuable. But, to me, that is somewhat different from what the term content has always implied to me. Contentment is this overall feeling or satisfaction and desiring things to be static for an extended period of time. For me, that just does not work. It is not a part of who I am.
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Being content is not a part of who I can be.

A Life Of Love... Or Lack Thereof

Earlier today I was reading and came to one of those points where conviction just sort of runs through my whole body and for a split second I realize how apathetic I've become. I'm not sure if these sorts of self-defining revelations are unique to me or they occasionally hit everyone, but I'm always so thankful when they come.
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I have a habit of needing to write things down when I'm experiencing them or when the thought process is fresh in mind. Sometimes I have a really cool train of thought but when I go back and try to remember all I have left are the first and last cars of the train, and I've lost everything in between. I was desperate to write down the source of these feelings, and this is what i was able to jot down:

"It breaks my own heart to realize the lack of love I show others in my life. The priorities I create in my mind coerce me into living in ways that don't reflect the person I want to be. My own ambitions ruin my life."
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Sometimes the irony of my life is just too much to take in. I'm here at a Christian institution, revising myself and my desires on a daily basis to come to terms with who I feel Christ wants me to be. I'm mulling around in my head constantly ideas of love and community and grace.

Then I step back, and look at who I really am; what I am, not in a comparative sense, but in contrast to who I am really supposed to be. I'm practically lost.
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That's not actually true. I know where I am, I know I'm supposed to be where I am, and I know that I'm going through a self-proclaimed "refining fire" at this stage of my life. But there are moments when I see how far I've come and then there are moments when I see how far I have to go. Today I had a moment where I saw both.
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What is so amazing to me is that in my life situation here at school you would think that the practice of genuine Christianity would be substantial. And I honestly think it is. It's incredible here. But at the same time I'm shocked to realize the lack of love that exists within the community sometimes.
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I think that what can happen is that when you have a group of people who are very close to you and whom you see all the time, we naturally begin to take that relationship for granted.

Some family relationships are the perfect example of that.

People who have been dating a long time take liberties with their boy/girlfriend's feelings. Spouses become indifferent to the preference of their partner. Close friends share a biting sense of humor and act nonchalant about their entire friendship.
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I'm not going to lie, when it comes to my friends I value the casual feel that we can have with each other. It helps keep things calm and safe. But there comes a point where the feelings of casualness don't hold on anymore. There is an aspect of community and grace with others that really shows us something about God, and the best ways that I have ever felt those things as genuine, really present between me and God, were when I experienced them through a relationship with another person. (And I'm not referring to a "relationship," it could be that but it definitely doesn't have to be.)
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I feel the love of God for me through other people. I feel the grace of God through other people. We feel the compassion, the forgiveness, the community, the wealth, the desire, the will, the kindness, the gentleness, the warmth, the adoration of God through other people. And when I feel farthest from God is when the relationships I have with people who matter the most are farthest from where they should/could be.
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We are the hands, the feet of Christ. We are the body of Jesus and we need to do on this earth what he did while he was here; hold each other, care for each other, cry with each other, love each other.
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In Shane Claiborne's book Irresistible Revolution, he talks about his experience in Calcutta for a summer working with Mother Teresa and serving the poorest of the poor. He talks about he would set up a small medical station to clean small wounds and bandage people who needed new dressing on their injuries. He said that some of the small children would intentionally fall to scratch themselves or scuff their knees just so they could come to the clinic and see the Christians and feel their love by being touched and held as they were healed.

How often do we do that? How often do people feel our love like those kids were able to? Those kids needed to be embraced and cared about, that was all they wanted. They didn't need a self-help lesson or a place to go and complain about life's difficulties or anything like that. All they wanted was to receive love, love like the love of Jesus.

And it just smacks me in the face when I look at myself and the people around me; we are Christians and I find it hard to see any sort of deep passion about people or conviction about caring for one another. Me and my friends! These kids are my friends, kids who I have theological discussions with and kids who I go to chapel with twice a week and kids who I live with everyday. And I have to squint to see Jesus' love shine through our actions. We walk this path of a "Christian College Student" and it's like I don't even see that mean anything in the way we treat one another, let alone other people.

What has happened to the basic love that we are supposed to show each other, the love Jesus showed every single person he ever came in contact with? It has all been replaced with sarcasm and swearing and apathy and frustration and restlessness and jokes and work and boredom and indifference. We don't want to get our hands dirty anymore, we just want everything to be casual. Just like our friendships.
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I don't know what to say really, I guess it is just that sometimes I look around at people who I know truly love God and are Christians and I struggle to see genuine consistency. I see so much more hypocrisy than genuine Christianity. I'm not turning to legalism or anything like that, it's just like, doesn't personal conviction exist anymore? Doesn't struggling with issues and feeling convicted about what Christ really wants to get out of us as a individuals show we are people pursuing what Jesus wants us? I don't know how many people I can say I honestly feel like that is the case with. All I know is that I am trying.
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God said that the world would know we are Christians by our love. If we don't notice our love in eachother how is the world ever going to notice it in us? I dont want to be indifferent anymore. I want to love people the way Jesus did. I want to love you the way God does. If I do anything less, then how will you see Jesus shine through me? Jesus loves you, and you should be able to feel that love through knowing me, but I doubt you do. We'd rather just keep it casual.
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I have far to go. Very far.

Drawing In Church

This last week I was in church and I drew a couple nice pictures during the service.
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These aren't the kind of drawings that people who are completely zoning out during the service draw to amuse themselves. I don't do drawings like that very often. Normally, during a sermon, or a chapel speech, or even classes sometimes, I like to take notes on good ideas I hear or quotes that really make me think; things I feel I can build off of. These were those kinds of pictures.
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I think this whole train of thought I had related back to how I felt like soon I need to sort of just go. Just go and serve somewhere. There was a segment of the service where a friend of mine, who is a big fan of mission trips and things of that nature, was talking about the recent trip him and some people from the church were able to make down to Haiti. It was really cool. But this is where it gets interesting.
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I found myself doing something that I have been doing a lot over the last few years and that I think a lot of people do. I started to think about all the things I could lose if I just followed my inclination to go and serve somewhere. I started to think how much that would ruin my plans and how uncomfortable that could be. The problem with these questions is that I, and maybe other people, blow them up to the extent that I fool myself into thinking they actually call into question how good of a decision it is to go serve. I'm not trying to say you can't have concerns or be nervous about taking risks to move towards God. But this is my point: we insist on having all our questions answered (and answered in the right way) before we are willing to take steps towards God and what He may want from us. This is what my first picture showed.

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The issue is that we think having all our questions answered is the only way we can take risks for God and go out on a limb. Well that just isn't true. In fact, we are never going to have all our questions answered but its crazy to see how much we can rationalize our reluctance to take risks.

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It's like we are going to cross the road. On one side is us and God is on the other side. He tells us to cross so we can be closer to Him. But we refusing to cross the road until we can't see a single car on the horizon. What I need to realize is that these things on the road aren’t even cars, they are only toys. If these toy cars crash into my feet while I’m walking then I’ll hardly feel it. We look at our situations and all the things we think we could lose and we turn hot wheels into semi trucks. I need to trust God and cross the road; I know he will protect me while I do it. Whatever crashes do occur because I chose to cross the road and get to God on the other side, they aren’t going to be these cataclysmic events that ruin everything my future holds. Instead, they are going to shake the things in my life and test them. Whatever falls apart wasn’t strong enough to last in the first place. As hard as that might be for me to accept and realize, that’s the reality of the situation.

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In the end, I feel like I need answers to questions before I just go and serve because I don't trust God enough. Fundamentally, the reason the questions are so influential in my thought process is because I'm afraid of what is to come; I'm afraid God isn't going to protect me.

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But I know that isn't true. I know God will always protect me. I need to learn to ask whatever questions I have as I walk towards God. Just because I have questions doesn't mean I can't move until I have all the answers. I'm never going to have all the answers. That's what my second picture was all about.