chasing daylight
i will say that i think i'm going through another critical transitioning, if you will, in the way my faith is defined. it's kinda like what they say about sororities: "you get out of it what you put into it." i feel like a relationship with God is essentially much in the same, and i'm currently facing some seriously defining situations right now. it's scary. any action that greatly shapes the dynamic of its outcome usually is, but it's more that i'm afraid i won't really make the dicisions at all. i may very well sit in this teetering spot for much longer than i'd ever want to handle.
Ever since last year, God's just kind of stripped away everything secure, everything i've always known, and is now saying...all right...perfect. go. hurry up. let's do this. and i'm sitting here dazed and confused wondering what the crap He's talking about. haha. ironically enough, just as He starts showing me how to live a life of freedom with the passions He places inside of me, i start reading this book Chasing Daylight (aka Seizing Your Divine Moment). it is pretty much enhanced the most life-changing and faith-defining challenges i've ever encountered in my life. God poses me with a challenge, i'm kinda in awe about it, pick up the book, and there's the whole thing over again. not kidding you. like that fast. i'm seriously feelin the heat. God is posing some HUGE things to me that i'm more than willing, in theory, to do...but when it comes down to reality, the same fears continue to grip me. fears i KNOW have, in my life, been proven wrong, that God has already conquered right in front of my face. but, c'mon. for serious...these are some inTENSE ideas. they'll shape my life forever.
how we view God dramatically affects who we become. how we understand God to work directly affects the life we live in God.
as is the theme in pretty much every book i've chosen to read out of my own will (which has only been about five): God calls us to give our lives for something greater than ourselves. there is an adventure out there that hardly any of us take hold of, the adventure of living in this extreme, ridiculously-uncertain-to-us faith. the idea of this one is, each moment in your life is defining and filled with monumental potential...the kinds of things that once you make a decision...your life (and usually the lives of others) are dramatically changed. and the whole concept isn't in this whole "don't waste your time, every moment you could make a mistake" idea.
the power of every moment makes them sources of immeasureable opportunity and hope. no matter what kind of life you've lived, no matter how many wrong choices you've made, the next moment is waiting to give birth to new life.
does this not like seriously blow your mind about as much as the ocean does? seriously. haha. it's one of those ideas you grasp just enough but totally will never fully get because it's just so overwhelming. so okay. that's all idea A. and seriously, all of this is bittersweet because now that they've been posed to me - regardless of how much i want to accept or deny them - i'm going to make a choice: will i rise to the occasion...or not. and this question is, of course, posed...pretty much every day. but then. as if that wasn't intense enough, there's idea B on top of it all (and i'm only halfway done with the book. i can only imagine...):
when we sieze [seemingly "impossible"] devine moments, even though we recognize that we are inadequate for the challenge before us, we experience the power and wonder of God.
it doesn't so much hit me when you put it like "God calls us to a life of uncertainty," but when you put it into this idea of ridiculous gray-area freedom, thaaaat's when it really gets to me. this idea that, okay, God gives you his basic instructions in the Bible, then he gives each person unique passions, personalities, gifts, etc. and we just....go. you're not to be afraid of "doing the wrong thing" but, instead, of "doing nothing at all." we have this insane freedom to act on the hearts God's given us, to pray with this power and certainty that any time we ask something of God with the intention of furthering His will, he WILL answer it, even if the answer looks different than the one we anticipated. i just sometimes can't even believe we have this freedom until i realize the amount of faith it takes to live a life filled with choices.
don't look for God to fill in all the blanks. don't wait for Him to remove all uncertainty. realize He may actually increase the uncertainty and leverage all the odds against you, just so that you will know in the end that it wasn't your gifts but His power through your gifts that fulfilled His purpose in your life...when God intervenes and there is really no human explaination, your life points to God, and His hand is undeniable. it is usually this kind of faith that catches our attention.
it's so funny, cause i finally realized the answer to that question: "well, how do you know God is in what you're doing?" you don't. you know if it's something that is an act on the heart God's placed inside of you or not, if it's something He would be pleased with, if it's someting done in selflessness, but otherwise you just...trust and know. sometimes God gives you proof, but sometimes He doesn't, and that doesn't make it something God's not "in."
mcmanus uses this story to describe this insane faith he's picturing; it's the one of the blind man from john 9. he's blind, he asks Jesus for sight, Jesus makes this paste from dirt and spit, puts it on his eyes, and tells him to go wash in the pool of siloam. well, mcmanus did what i often find myself doing, he found something in that passage that gave it a whole different twist. who knows if it was fully intended to be found or if it was just something God used to show him this particular concept, but yeah. it made me feel better cause He does that to me all the time. haha. so anyways, mcmanus points out that the poor blind man has just asked Jesus for sight and Jesus, to be blunt, puts some nasty spitty (and it seriously had to have been a HUGE lugie) dirt on his face and tells him to leave and go wash. kinda harsh, embarrassing, and confusing, really. but then, mcmanus deducts this:
when Jesus commanded the man to go to the place called Sent, to leave with his prayers unfulfilled, with his needs unmet, with his questions unanswered, in many ways he left in a worse condition than before. he was a blind man with mud caked on his face moving father away from the only One who could help him. he coud have never fully grasped that his healing would come only in the place called Sent. that if he had refused the journey, he would have lost the miracle. [and he goes on to infer that] there is for all of us...a journey we are called to where things become more uncertain before they become clear, where our need for faith in God increases with every step rather than diminishes...He will shake loose everything in which we place our trust outside of Him and teach us how to thrive in a future unknown. there is only One who is certain; everything else exists in the realm of uncertainty.
this is what God's shown me in my life this very year. this very semester. this very week. today, even. and it's so interesting how the random book recommendation i get from an old friend that i never see anymore but ran into this summer, is the book that i start reading this semester, and never ceases to "second the motion" of what God is already revealing to me. i know. inTENSE.
i want to say i know that i'm ready to rise to the challenge and that i'm excited, cause part of my heart feels that way. but the reality is, i'm freaking scared and i don't want to make the wrong choice. so i sit here. making a few choices here and there and seeing God bless out of encouragment (hoping i'll let go and live already. haha), but for the most part avoiding uncertainty, trust, and faliure. but God is patiently faithful, and change IS coming. with each moment i lack action, my discontentment increases and i'm only pushed closer to my breaking point. i won't be able to sit here much longer: watching opportunities pass me, thinking about quitting things that don't immideately show potential and yeild product, fearing uncertain outcomes. i can't stay here forever. and i'm determined to move forward. so i guess it's only a matter of time until my heart can't take it anymore and i just...let go. and move.
i don't want to move and i don't think i could.
i don't want to move and i don't think i should.
i don't want to move.
no, i don't want to move.
i don't want to move and i don't think i could.
breathe in deeper now.
breathe in deeper now.
breathe in deeper, breathe in now.
the costliest of costs.
the deadliests of loss.
the wonder of the cross.
the breath of life that stops,
the hope of Heaven bought.
the wonder of the cross.
the wonder of the cross.
breathe in deeper now (the wonder of the cross).
breathe in deeper now (the wonder of the cross).
breathe in deeper, breathe in now.
1 comment:
That's a great book isn't it. I'm glad that you are reading it. McManus is a stud.
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