something to invest myself in (A RANT)

it's been a while since i posted up here, and...well, here's something.

i've hurt a lot of people over the past few months, past few days. i've said a lot of crap and i've done a lot of crap, and i've managed to look pretty cool throughout it all. and now i'll say something that'll shock everyone. i'm sick of it all.

i'm sick of coming on here and being afraid of saying things because someone might get their feelings hurt. i'm sick of all of the finger pointing and jeering going on while lives hang in the balance and no one is willing to sit down and talk and realize exactly what it is they're doing. i'm sick of not being able to trust anyone, feeling like i'm being manipulated. and i'm sick of people who think they're Christians and aren't, who say they have this faith all the while it's like James 2 when it says that faith without works is stupid because it doesn't even help you out. it's just a freaking label. i'm sick of people who are so bent on pride that they won't approach God and even if they have problems, they think that they can handle everything on their own and they never know the significance of the things going on around them and how blessed they really are and yet the slightest inconvenience, a single bad day, will tick them off and send them running in the opposite direction as far away from God as possible because that bit of adversity somehow proves that God is a jerk.

and i'm sick because that person is me just about as much as anyone could ever be.

because my pride is consuming and i don't think things through and maybe even no matter how hard i try, i don't approach God with a way that my heart can be filled with His Spirit. i approach Him in a way that wants something, that is confused, that doesn't acknowledge that God is everything. this isn't a sob story.

at the same time, it's not a true story either. because truth be told...i know i'm a son of God. i know that He's called me as a son and i've answered that call (check that out...did someone say MACCSR theme?). it's just...i fall every now and then. and my pride gets in the way and i don't seize the day and maybe i do something stupid on a regular basis and maybe sometimes i don't even try, but sometimes i do. sometimes i try my heart out. and sometimes i don't. and that's when it's easy to get frustrated. that's when it's easy to throw the towel in, to say i never tried, to say i'm hopelessly lost, unredeemably damned.

i hate to put this up here after the impression i think i made at MACCSR Windermere, which was an incredible time. but this is part of who i am. i struggle... and my doubts and my fears annoy the stuffing out of me and the pride that i can't get rid of, but also seem to refuse to give to God, which is the only way it will truly be removed from the picture. i just can't wrap my mind around it, i guess. that the best thing i could ever do - the most i could ever do - is lay my life down, and that this will save me. i've heard it over and over again, and i might even acknowledge to believe that it's the way to go, but i just can't seem to do it.

anyways, playing bass at MACCSR was amazing. about an hour each day, my fingers were hurting, but i must admit that i was playing with skill that i've never had before. i had wanted to practice so that i could be really good, but it ended up that i didn't practice at all and ended up having a great time and playing better than i could have imagined. and i got to worship. and i got to fellowship. it was truly something great. met some amazing people there, had a great time.

came back, and there's this church called Journey that's this big mega church here in Norman, so i went there yesterday night with Daniel and Amyie and Aileen and it was pretty nice. worship was pretty good and the pastor spoke about Saul/Paul and how he took about 15 years of preparation for his ministry before he even started and how he didn't want us to accept his ideas and what he was saying, but to think them through and take what we would out of them, take what would make sense. and some or much of what he said made sense. that God does things in His own timing, and so if i'm not doing some extraordinary work at this very moment, it could be that God is simply preparing me for certain things. it could be that God is sending me through these difficult trials as preparation to witness to others who will go through the same thing. it is possible...that God is trying to get us to understand that we get our identity from him by trying to get as close and intimate to Him as we can instead of getting our identities simply from doing things.

because...it's not about the doing. you can beat the game of doing, and it's easy to start to think of things in terms of better when we're talking about doing. but being? it means we're simply loved on. we did nothing to receive what it is God is giving to us. the way He sees us, the love and anticipation and happiness and unflinching attention that He gives us is completely unprecedented, and we did nothing to deserve it. we were sinners. we were offenses to His kingdom. and God's response was to call us back into His kingdom, to be in His kingdom, simply by answering His call, and by nothing else.

if someone were to ask me how i got to be who i am now and have progressed to whatever level of faith i am at now, i wouldn't be able to say anything. i would say, "well...it's all God, you know," but that's not really an answer. i asked mike one time why i was saved and others weren't and he said, for some reason...it was like God's grace was there sometime and i jumped at it. i used to be able to look at runners and not care how fast or slow they were running. i wouldn't care about their times, i would just want to see their hearts and their hurts, because i realized then that success is relative, and if you could run your heart out one race with a terrible time, it was still a good race and a good day. i realized that success was relative. now i'm starting to think that God is relative.

God is personal, He means something different to every person, and when i think about God and what i like about God, there are good chances that i am thinking of someone very different from who you see, though it is still the same God who did the same things, and yet, does very unique things for each of us.

i guess what i'm trying to say is...God does different things. He works different ways through different people, He speaks differently, He moves differently. i think He means the same thing to everyone - He means a Savior, salvation, the answer to all of our problems, a reason for life - but i think He does things differently for people. that's how we can all be different and distinct members, yet united in the single body of Christ.

this is significant because, if God has each people doing very different things and if God has people doing things in their own unique ways where they genuinely can experience God, no matter what that looks like, the process of doing is undermined once again. it simplifies to...it doesn't matter what i do. it doesn't really matter what anyone does or what it looks like. but if they are really truly finding God there. take away all the assumptions of what serving God and following God should look like. if God is relative, that means that the things each of us does is going to be different, and that it's not going to matter. all that will matter is whether or not we will have seen God, whether or not He will have stolen our hearts and whether or not we will have run our hearts out trying to get to Him.

i realized last night that a life completely devoted to worshipping God would be a good life. regardless of what that might look like, you would at least know for yourself that you were onto something great. you would know God. and though your circumstances might really suck, you would still know God. God is life, you know?