Split

I feel like I’m finding my voice again. There was a time when I used to write a lot. Not writing that I would talk about to a lot of people, but writing where I would process my feelings, my thoughts, my epiphanies, and my desires. For too long, I haven’t taken time to really think through things and that has led to all sorts of messiness in my mind. I’m writing this from Flagstaff. There is such a peace and a happiness that I associate with this place. Even though it’s only two hours away from my actual home, I feel that this is an escape; a chance for me to really get away and deal with the things that are going on in my heart. As I was coming upstairs to get ready for bed, I saw something that really got my mind going.

I am a person who loves traditions. I love to make traditions and I love to keep them. In our family, there are so many different things that we have to do exactly the same every single year or there is a certain sense of unrest and dissatisfaction at the end product. I think this boils down to something that has been grown in my mind over the years; I don’t like change. For some strange reason, I took off with this tonight. I walked upstairs and I opened a drawer knowing that there was going to be a blue pen in there. I know this because that pen has been there since the first year we came up to Flagstaff (we are now on 4 years). I found a real sense of comfort in the fact that I knew what was about to happen in that moment. I was going to open the drawer and that pen was going to be right where I left it the last time. As this comfort hit me, I was also hit with a sense of dissatisfaction about the way things are in my life.

I don’t like change. This single statement has been a big defining characteristic in the man that I am right now and has really shaped my life in so many ways. I think that growing up, I buried this ideal in my mind and that meant that nothing was going to change this, even if that meant sacrificing healthy life patterns. Recently, I have been finding that as I grow and mature in Christ, there is so much wrong with this mindset. The idea of change is found all over the Christian faith. In fact, this year, I have been hit with the fact that I am not changing enough. My “ideal” life ends with me doing what I want, when I want, and how I want. Tragically, I feel as though I have allowed myself to settle into this mindset. A lot of times, I really don’t feel as though I am a different person than I was a year ago. The split comes as I see that I live in between two different worlds.

In one world, I feel as though I live how I would like to live. This involves me coasting. Life comes and life goes, but I don’t adjust who I am in order to really deal with the obstacles that life is throwing at me. If I am truly honest with myself, I find that I live in this realm more often than not. I’ve been having some really great conversations over the past 2 months that are we really starting to shake me.

In the other world, I feel as though I need to change. There are so many different Biblical bases that suggest this pressure that I feel. I know what the Gospel says. I know that I am saved by grace, through faith, that I might come into right relationship with God. I feel as though I have the answers, but my life is not reflecting that. I guess I’m finding that as I see my brokenness, my response is not supposed to be such that I take it for granted. The Gospel saves me daily from myself. I guess that I find that I fight that too much. I want the good news of the Gospel, but not the response that flows from a transformed heart. God is really starting to impress that thought upon my heart and I’ve been wrestling through this idea a lot for the past 6 months or so. There is a fight in my heart. A split that needs to occur.

Rebuilding

The past few weeks have been really great for me. I feel as though I am coming to a point where I am really just excited to see what God is going to do. There are two things that I know to be true in my life: 1.) I am utterly and completely broken 2.) God is utterly and completely good. I have been really fighting to find my worth and contentment in so many different things over the past year and they have all been failing me miserably. As this has been a season with lots of unexpected surprises and adventures, I have had to look outside myself in order to find hope. I feel that God has really broken me of so much these past two weeks and I have really been able to see and experience his faithfulness on a first-hand basis. Something that I have been praying for and thinking through over this past season of my life is that I would get a grip on exactly how broken I am. It's amazing to me that even though I mess up so many hundreds of times every day that I can still puff myself up to be someone who thinks he has life together. God answered my prayer. There have been so many different instances of hopelessness felt over the past couple of months. There have also been so many different moments of hope. The moments of hopelessness come when I feel like I have lost everything and that my life isn't going anywhere. The moments of hope are moments where I realize that God has plans to prosper me and and plans for good. Now I recognize that this does not mean life is going to be happy all of the time and that I won't have issues. In fact, I know that not to be the case. What I do know, however, is that my hope is found in what Jesus did for me at the cross. Because of the cross, I have hope for a future. I am secure. In the midst of my brokenness, I am being made new. I am being rebuilt.