Patience and Trust

My friend Dave once told me he had to get a point in his life, where, when he asked himself if he did nothing more in life than be a janitor could he be happy? He told me he finally was able to say yes, and that he would be the best janitor he could be for God and that he could be happy doing it. I have trouble at times finding myself at that point. I'm still a relatively new Christian and my struggle on a daily basis is offering my will to God and knowing that He knows better than me. Its uncomfortable, and its frightening. I once read, that in the Jewish tradition, it is believed that the Red Sea would not part until the Israelites first put their feet in the water, and that it didn't open before them but instead opened on the other side of the sea and moved slowly toward them for the duration of the night. All night they waited, protected by the whirl wind that stood between them and the Egyptians, watching and waiting in fear for the sea to part so they could escape being slaughtered.

I sat quite alone mulling these thoughts over in my mind, listening to Brooke Fraser gently sing Hosanna through my speakers. For a good portion of my life, even when I was still in the church I always felt that God wasn't there, and upon my leaving I hated Him for being absent when I needed Him, because I felt I sat alone in whatever suffering or fear that stood before me. I can tell you, hearing Brooke Fraser sing so lovingly to God reminded me that Christ stood with me in that room during this time of fear and doubt, and I knew I wasn't alone. Even though it pains me, and I wait for the sea to open before me, I know He stands there holding back all that I once was, giving me time to have faith and hand my will again over to the glory of my Father.

I was faced with a very painful reality, something I know will continue to haunt me for a very long time, something I know could always eventually separate me from me the people I love and could love. It is the weight of my sin, the sin I acquired long before I acknowledged Christ as my savior, a weight that will always haunt me. The question: if, maybe, where I had come in my life wasn't the will of God, and the happiness I had struck upon wasn't in His plan, and would I have to let it go knowing that this weight, perhaps, was attached.

I believe this is like handing over the plastic pearls I mentioned in my first entry here, 'Sadie's Song', but this time knowing full well that I may not receive new pearls in return. It's a difficult thing to realize this and to have to tell yourself that you will be alright with it. I can tell you dear reader, I don't make good decisions, maybe someday I will, when I've walked a bit farther down that dirt road towards God, as Donald Miller puts it, but for now its knowing that part of my will is still my own and that I always have to turn it over to Him. I have come to know that I cannot trust my feelings, and I can't trust my fears which are sometimes in opposition of each other. This only leaves a prayer, and a hope, since I am divided.

God is good, all the time, its not always easy to know this, but I really do believe it's true. I can tell you my way never got me anywhere good, but trying God's way for a while got me more than I could have ever thought possible, and the sea is still parting. I trust God, I trust Him because He saved me from myself, and I love Him for it. I was recently told that I don't really know what that means, to love God, I agree with that. I think I could name aspects of that love but nothing which could encapsulate it in its entirety. Perhaps love is seen in action, and actions can only be seen in the concrete moment and in past action, but, to be very honest, I don't think I much care about how to define it. I don't think I care anymore what it is to define things. I spent the better part of my 20's trying to define God and what it is to believe, and I can tell you now I know much less than I thought I did when I was arrogant and believed I could find God in a text book, but what I do know is what I feel about Him. Martin Buber once said that right action can only be known in the moment and is only right if it continues you down the path towards God, this I believe.

I don't know what will come of this (I'm sure you're all wondering what 'this' is, but I can tell you it is much less important then the conclusion of this piece of writing) but I know that despite whatever the out come may be it will be by God's love for me. In Romans 8, Paul says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, nothing at all, not heights, nor depths, nor anything created, and this I know to be true, because I feel it. It will take time for me to say I could be happy being a janitor like Dave, but I can say that if that is what God would ask me to do I would do it, because I trust Him, and because He loves me. And I think this love will only grow as I continue down Donald Miller's dirt road, at first watching God as a speck in the distance and after some time growing into a form of a being and eventually He'll be close enough that I'll be able to see the lines on His face.