I'm always drawn back.

After writing my last post I had some regrets.

I was thinking and suddenly this notion hit me: no matter what kind of spiritual crisis I'm in, I'm always inexplicably drawn back to the Lord. Even if that crisis involves me abhoring God's actions in 1 Samuel 15 to the point that I don't think I can ever bring myself to love or embrace Him again. Times when my logic outshines my heart for God or my intimate experiences with Him.

I know that deep down, I find my hope and identity in Christ and that without Him, I am nothing. For now, that will have to suffice and triumph over my unrest about God's actions against the Alamek empire.

So far Lent has not been great.  Obviously, because I wanted to give up the internets and yet here I am writing a blog.  But tonight I couldn't resist.  My roommates, one of whom is drunk for the millionth time, woke me up about two and a half hours ago and I haven't been able to get back to sleep.  When I'm frustrated I feel the urge to blog.  Apart from the agonizing frustration of being woken up yet again by them, here's what I've been thinking about.

While in general I'm less depressed, I'm far from God and I know it.  It's like I'm some ravished child in a highchair, bound by four walls, perhaps surrounded by delicious food but completely unable to grab anything because I'm physically limited.  And maybe just too tired to reach anymore, exhausted from trying to reach the unattainable.  

The worst part of this is that I know it, I realize that I'm not close to God and yet I feel no different.  I have no desire to see God glorified, no passion to share His love coursing through my veins.  I'm not 'on fire' for God nor do I desire the Christian life apart from feeling like I must live it out.  Spiritually I feel bland.  

However, on other fronts I feel absolutely grand.  Sadly somehow my spiritual life got separated from the rest of me, but I'm doing wonderfully on a personal note.  I'm growing into my own and I have more resonance and confidence in who I am than I've ever been.  I'm not as hung up on things like my surroundings, relationships, circumstances, past or future.  My work ethic is flourishing.  I am grabbing onto friendships and relishing in them truly for the first time since my amazing summer in Daytona Beach and even then it's at a completely different, wonderful level.  A lot of things in my life are 'going right' in ways I've never experienced.  I don't wake up dreading continuing the day or wishing I could sleep all day long.  I don't dread encountering people.    I'm not obsessing over as much and I'm less uptight about my life.  I can get through an entire school day without having and dwelling on a single depressing thought.  Mornings are now my favorite part of the day.  Cool.

All that said, I have to admit that while I was at my lowest and hating life and myself, I was in a deeper, more intimate fellowship with the Lord.  I found myself depending on Him more.  As unhappy as I was, a part of me - perhaps a part deep down I couldn't see - clung to Christ knowing that He is the only steadfast and trustworthy Person in the universe.  I didn't realize just how closely I was drawn to Jesus through that dark period until now - happier but with a soul left unsatisfied.

Reading my Bible tonight before bedtime didn't help.  I was in the spirit of Lent and had just switched off my TV, realizing that I hadn't spent time with God today.  I didn't feel particularly led anywhere so I just plopped open my English Standard Version to 1 Samuel 15.  Read it.  As I drank in verse after verse, my hatred and frustration towards God developed at an alarming rate.  Here is God ordering Saul to go into a town called Amalek and completely slaughter everyone living there, man and woman, child and beast.  For no other reasons than to punish them for opposing Israel on the way out of Egypt and to test Saul's ability to follow orders from God as Israel's appointed king.  You don't just kill an entire city.  Hello? Thou shall not kill?  It seems like this commandment is pushed aside the most throughout the Bible.  People slaughtered left and right because God commanded it.  In fact at the end of this chapter Samuel shames Saul for not murdering everyone like God wanted and after Saul is dethroned, Samuel confronts the King of Amalek who Saul spared:

And Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past."  And Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women."  And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord.

I can't understand or embrace a God who would simply order the murder of thousands of people, even some innocent children who aren't even old enough to actively rebel against Him.  To me this entire passage goes against all I've been taught about God's character.  I hate God for causing all these people to be killed only to go to hell because He never gave them a chance to be redeemed.  

This kind of thing happens throughout the Old Testament, yet we never hear from it at church or from our spiritual leaders.  If we believe the entire Bible is the true Word of God, and all parts are equally good and glorifying to God, why neglect all these terror stories from Samuel? More so how do we see that God is good through this chapter in Samuel?  

There's so much to Bill Maher's argument against religion that I want to agree with, that I want to stand up and embrace and slam my fist down triumphantly because nothing would feel more right.  

Lenten musings...

I thought I might want to give up the internets at first.

Then I thought of how in the past few weeks how quickly I turn to Regis & Kelly or some funny TBS sitcom the minute I get back to my room, exhausted. I thought maybe I should give up TV.

But I just realized I have such an issue with people's perception of me through Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, even this blog and so maybe this is what I should be giving up (see previous post). I have a real problem with obsessing over how people think of me after they visit my sites.

I feel like this is what I should be abstaining from for the next forty days.

Sometimes, I feel I let Twitter and Facebook define people's perception of me. Mostly Twitter. It's stupid and incredibly exhausting thinking of witty things. Apparently I'm not innately witty.

Hopes.

I hope I don't turn into a lame Christian.

A Christian who's a hypocrite, who reads one thing in God's Word then does another. I don't want to be stagnant in my faith. I don't want to settle into a comfortable neighborhood and forget the struggles outside my warm and fuzzy community. Or find myself at a church where VBS cartoon cutouts or mustly old hymnals outnumber the homeless being fed and sheltered every week.

I feel like I am turning into a lame Christian. Complacent. Self-righteous. I don't want to be a person who falls under and gets crushed by that Christian stigma. I don't want to wear a cross around my neck lest I develop a trendy, casual perspective about the Gospel. I want to be different. I've noticed that there aren't many Christians I know that really get it. I mean, get it. They throw away worldy posessions, embrace the Word and heed God's desires and really live out the Gospel. Those people are refreshing and exciting. Those are the people with dreads and tatts with seemingly radical things to preach to the nations but really they are just taking direction from the Bible and speaking and living it. I can look at myself and say that I am not one of those persons. There's a lot holding me back from surrendering my all to the Lord and I feel like that is the key. I sing, I pray, I read, I fellowship. But in the deepest pockets of my heart (or maybe more shallowly) I am holding grudges, I am judging friends, I am complaining, I am obsessing over my problems, I am dwelling on bitterness. How can I ever worship God joyfully with these things fouling up my heart?

I don't understand budgeting. Or finances. Or much of anything discipline related.

Some characteristics.

I can tell this entry will be a doozy but there's a ton on my heart, so bear with me...

I'm not the most put-together, classy or creative person.

Secretly I long to be that Interior Design major, who's been picking out darling clothing since 2nd grade, with an eye for design and good colors, who's generally more imaginative when it comes to decorating or styling or putting together poster presentations.

I think a lot of my adolescent and even college-age struggles come from my unsatisfaction with my character and how I am made. Yet... these past couple months as I've understood my character at new depths, I'm starting to experience satisfaction. I love 'learning' that I am type B, that I am laid back, that there's a reason I've never liked wearing watches, or that I love waiting until the last minute to finish tasks. Better understanding my character affects the way I act in some beneficial ways.

With my STINT application, I've put it off and put it off. There's nothing more natural to me than not finishing that thing until the day before it's is absolutely needed on March 2nd. I also don't worry - basically ever. There are days here and there when I panic a little bit about legit being in the real world but generally I'm good at not worrying about much.

It's a blessing in a chaotic world. Now - not to say that these characteristics are perfect, just that they are me and right now I'm enjoying understanding them better, even embracing them a little. I have a long way to go, all the way into eternity, for complete perfection. I don't believe God wants be to be so immersed in a worry-free attitude that I develop lazy tendencies or always wait until the last minute, because too much type B is dangerous. But God is showing me that there is a way to glorify Him by accepting them as unique - breaking the mold if you will - before I desire to improve upon them with Christ as my ideal.

Like right after I became Christian, I totally hated my character. I felt like I was too much like my old self in little character habits and tendencies that weren't necessarily sinful, but I was so enraptured by the concept of "new life" that I began to hate myself and my personality and I constantly desired change in my life, all the way down to my anti-watch attitude and introvertedness. Now - almost a couple years later - I'm seeing that 'death to better - long live new' doesn't necessarily mean changing the way you squeeze toothpaste out of the tube, or how you approach chemisty problem sets. It an issue of righteousness and how I can glorify God in the characther He gave me to begin with.

I'm unique. I love wearing bright colors. I love meeting new people. I'd much rather share the Gospel than build somone else up in their faith. I have an issue with inwardly showing grace to others. I'm still working on patience. I love variety and prompting change in my life. I rearrange my room and bathroom at least every other week. Post-its are my organizational life-line and probably wouldn't get anything done if I didn't tell myself to do it on a Post-it. I've always done my best work under pressure which leads me to wait until the last minute for most things. I barely plan. I'm more detail oriented than focused on the big picture. I don't worry. I adjust to change pretty easily. I can't remember the last thing I got uptight about. I'd rather let things slide than risk confrontation. I'll do the dishes and wipe off the counters because I love doing those things. I love playing house, playing mom and taking care. My mind is the most vulnerable. I can't be left alone with my own thoughts or I'll probably get sink into depression or pride or impurity. I always have music or TV on when I'm alone. I love wearing what's most comfortable and that definitely means sacrificing cuteness or style. Shopping intimidates me bigtime and so does theology. My toughest sin this year has been judgement.

So a lot of those things aren't really issues of righteousness or areas that I need to bug out about when it comes to putting on Christ or inheriting new life. Others are less pretty traits that obviously don't reflect fruits of the spirit. There's a lot of work there but I can thankfully say I'm not in a place anymore where I'm obsessed with changing everything about myself overnight... because that, my friends, is not how Jesus works nor is that what my Christianity is about. It's not about me! I'm slowly getting that my life is not in fact, all about me, but it's all about Christ. The blazing glory of Christ. Imagine that.

My changing attributes should be secondary and will come after I make Jesus my center and my goal and my love and provision.

Type B.

I am Type B.

I love this fact. Lately I am relishing and rolling around in it as if it were the most luxurious green, grassy pasture in the world...

I love that God made me this way, and I'm starting to give my personality a warm and fuzzy side-hug rather than a bitter and ferocious leg-drop, like I usually do. Usually I reject my Type B tendencies, like my chill factor, how much I love to just lay back and put my feet up, all the times I don't plan and rather take life as it's dealt. For instance right now the only thing on my mind, entirely, is writing this post. When I'm done, my mind will think about the next thing I could do on this computer, and I probably won't think about what I need to get done until it's actually staring me in the face. Good times. Instead of stressing out, I'm calm. Not worrying.

It's all good.