"GOD does not Love children because they are innocent, but becuase they are incompetent."
- Brennan Manning
Some time has passed since I wrote here last, but as indicated in the last post, my life seems to have been a series of overwhelming occurances and thoughts for the past few weeks. It has been a chaotic time of finding my place in this big world, a task I have not yet completed, or rather simply realizing that I am at least here in some form.
However, I really love how God seems to take so much delight in turning our world upside down. In this case, I believe he brings us to places like college to remind us that true growing up in him means becomming little children, totally unaware of all the wothless analysis that can be done on this life. To become a child.
Over the past months, God has been impressing upon my heart the importance of simply allowing childlikeness to emerge from my soul. During that oh-so-momentus camping trip over the summer, I found and strange enjoyment in simply blowing bubbles from my younger sister's pink bottle, and I just remember thinking blowing bubbles would be a great practice for this whole experience. Again, last friday, I found myself overstressed, wondering what adult thing I should be doing, and instead I found myself re-introduced to the splendor that Mario-Kart is. And again, this past weekend when I found myself in God's glorious mountains, I found immense pleasure in the opportunity to throw a thousand rocks into the river just to enjoy the splash. God is making me a little more childish as I have come here to learn to be a grown-up.
Yesterday, I was standing in a bathroom stall in the student rec center putting on dry clothes after being taught a few swimming lessons from one of my friends and it just somehow occured to me how we seem to be constantly searching after the next time in our lives. As small children, we wait for our school-age to come, as school-aged, we long for the glamourized and yet strangely painfully awakening adolencence and from there young adulthood, and then career, and subsequently on to retirement, and ultimately death. But isn't life about so much more than this perpetual waiting for time to carry us on? Could it be that we really are always just children? Small, incompetent children.
Tonight I went to the Rock where I found myself sitting uncomfortable with a message that repentance is about going through a list and then getting our junk together before God. Throughout the teaching, I was just begging God to show me what my response should be, wondering how I was going to hear about this grace that I had specifically asked God to reveal to me. And strangely enough, this answer almost seemed to come through the negative space of what the guy was saying-- everything he was not saying and I was longing for him to say is what hit me the hardest.
Throughout the teaching, I just wanted him to end it with some sort of punch-line, something along the lines of our inability to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, some certain thing about God's grace... but he did not. Even in the midst of all this, during the response time, I found myself simply free to express all of these heart whispers to God. More than ever was my weakness, my smallness, my incompetence obvious, blaring. And it gave me hope. Hope that I could simply be empty and nothing before God and trust that somehow this total surrender of self would be an offering he would desire.
And so, I have found a great deal of comfort for my wandering mind about what exactly I am here for. I find hope for my fear not living up to my major, my title, my expectations. I have been thinking more recently about the thought that God has absolutely no expectations of me. If I find myself honest about the nothing that I am without GOd, I never find myself dissappointed, always grateful for the something God graciously places in my hand.
And so I have come to college to learn once agian what it means to be a child.
However, I really love how God seems to take so much delight in turning our world upside down. In this case, I believe he brings us to places like college to remind us that true growing up in him means becomming little children, totally unaware of all the wothless analysis that can be done on this life. To become a child.
Over the past months, God has been impressing upon my heart the importance of simply allowing childlikeness to emerge from my soul. During that oh-so-momentus camping trip over the summer, I found and strange enjoyment in simply blowing bubbles from my younger sister's pink bottle, and I just remember thinking blowing bubbles would be a great practice for this whole experience. Again, last friday, I found myself overstressed, wondering what adult thing I should be doing, and instead I found myself re-introduced to the splendor that Mario-Kart is. And again, this past weekend when I found myself in God's glorious mountains, I found immense pleasure in the opportunity to throw a thousand rocks into the river just to enjoy the splash. God is making me a little more childish as I have come here to learn to be a grown-up.
Yesterday, I was standing in a bathroom stall in the student rec center putting on dry clothes after being taught a few swimming lessons from one of my friends and it just somehow occured to me how we seem to be constantly searching after the next time in our lives. As small children, we wait for our school-age to come, as school-aged, we long for the glamourized and yet strangely painfully awakening adolencence and from there young adulthood, and then career, and subsequently on to retirement, and ultimately death. But isn't life about so much more than this perpetual waiting for time to carry us on? Could it be that we really are always just children? Small, incompetent children.
Tonight I went to the Rock where I found myself sitting uncomfortable with a message that repentance is about going through a list and then getting our junk together before God. Throughout the teaching, I was just begging God to show me what my response should be, wondering how I was going to hear about this grace that I had specifically asked God to reveal to me. And strangely enough, this answer almost seemed to come through the negative space of what the guy was saying-- everything he was not saying and I was longing for him to say is what hit me the hardest.
Throughout the teaching, I just wanted him to end it with some sort of punch-line, something along the lines of our inability to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, some certain thing about God's grace... but he did not. Even in the midst of all this, during the response time, I found myself simply free to express all of these heart whispers to God. More than ever was my weakness, my smallness, my incompetence obvious, blaring. And it gave me hope. Hope that I could simply be empty and nothing before God and trust that somehow this total surrender of self would be an offering he would desire.
And so, I have found a great deal of comfort for my wandering mind about what exactly I am here for. I find hope for my fear not living up to my major, my title, my expectations. I have been thinking more recently about the thought that God has absolutely no expectations of me. If I find myself honest about the nothing that I am without GOd, I never find myself dissappointed, always grateful for the something God graciously places in my hand.
And so I have come to college to learn once agian what it means to be a child.
1 comment:
". . .and it just somehow occured to me how we seem to be constantly searching after the next time in our lives."
I found this to be a very intruiging phrase. I believe that you have stumbled across a rather profound spirituality on this level because you have seen what the entire Christian experience is (at least, in part). Not wishing to go near escapism, nor do I hope to say that we are not meant to live the life we are given. . .but to observe our constant desire to experience what lies ahead is a mark of the wild imagination which has brought us forth.
That is to say, the Christian experience (on one level) may be characterized by 'wait' and 'hope' and so it should be natural that we live our lives in such a way. CSL stated: ""If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." (Mere Christianity)
I believe that what you described is an acknowledgment that we are meant for something greater because we live out, in part, the grand drama which has us looking forward to the next step. I think you have made quite a theological stumble. . .but that's the only way the good stuff comes anyway.
Post a Comment