please be heartfelt...

please be a heartfelt post...please be, somehow, relevant to any of this. i run around hoping i can be these things - hoping i can be in the right with God and with others, hoping i can be in truth, that the words i say and the things i do would have meaning, would be worth listening to, worth watching. that my life would have a purpose, that i wouldn't be living in vain, that i wouldn't be wasting away. and yet, what will i do? will my actions reflect an urgency for relevance, a desire for significance, a search for something that matters?

i realized today in chapel that the things we learn have no relevance to what we are facing. there's nothing about "this can change your life," nothing about "this is a solution to your problems," nothing about "He died for you." instead, i can't even remember what we talk about. today he told us how we sometimes take for granted the things that God gives us, but the chaplain didn't really talk about it that much. but he's speaking to a broken generation. a generation bent on drugs, on sex, a generation that has been exposed to more heartbreak than ever before, more brokenness in their homes and their relationships than any generation has ever known, a generation who has been fed the idea that they have to be bigger than themselves to be relevant, to be loved or significant or heartfelt. a generation whose problems run from the media and propaganda to drugs and rape to collapsing homes and relationships to having nothing. having nothing to live for, having nothing worth living for.

but i didn't say what i said in that first paragraph because i am trying to psyche and hype myself up to be some kind of leader that can say something relevant. well, i want to, but i didn't say any of that because i wanted myself to be the answer. i didn't even know what i would write in that second paragraph. i wrote what i did because i identify with this generation. i identify with the brokenness, with the abandonment, with the confusion and the chaos. because my life is falling apart. because i have relationships that are failing. namely, one.

these are four qualities:
humility
love
relevance
vulnerability

i have one relationship that i don't invest enough in. i have another relationship that i am ignoring, that i am letting sit and rot and i am letting myself stay in the wrong. i am letting one relationship get too far when i should be spending my time in another. i am letting one relationship sit in the corner undetected, i have another that i don't know what to do with, i have another i haven't paid attention to for years.

will God see my hands? will He see my hands raised high, will He see me heart bowed down? will He know my sorrow, will He see my regret for not taking Him more seriously? He will see my reasons, but He knows they are not excuses, and i know they are not either. what will it take for me to give everything i have? what will it take for me to pour all of me into a single relationship, to run and cling to the majesty of a King, the shelter of His love? not asking anything. not doubting, not fearing, not even necessarily rationalizing. but acting out of some kind of determination, acting out of some kind of unreasonable need or urgency, that i have to do this.