Hearing God

I started reading Dallas Willard's Hearing God, and only on the first page, it was piercing through me, directly to the pains and confusions that have surrounded this idea in my life for years. Here's part of the first page of the preface:

Among our loneliest moments, no doubt, is the time of decision. There the weight of our future life clamps down upon our hearts. Whatever comes from our choice will be our responsibility, our fault. Good things we have set our hearts on become real only as we choose them. But those things, or those as yet undreamed of, may also be irretrievably lost if our choices are misguided. We may find ourselves stuck with failures and dreadful consequences that must be endured for a lifetime.

Then quickly there follows the time of second thoughts—and third, and fourth: Did I do the good and wise thing? Is it what God wanted? Is it even what I wanted? Can I live with the consequences? Will others think I am a fool? Is God still with me? Will he be with me even if it becomes clear that I made the wrong choice?

As soon as I read that part, I admit, I had tears running down my face. Those questions are the exact ones that plague me constantly. I'm not sure how I got to this spot, so haunted by what-ifs, so fearful of an unknown future resting on my ignorant decisions. But I'm really looking forward to reading this book. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Desire

"Most of you will by this time have lost a parent, a spouse, even a child. Your hopes for your career have not panned out. Your health has given way. Relationships have turned sour. We all know the dilemma of desire, how awful it feels to open our hearts to joy, only to have grief come in. They go together. We know that. What we don’t know is what to do with it, how to live in this world with desire so deep in us and disappointment lurking behind every corner. After we’ve taken a few Arrows, dare we even desire? Something in me knows that to kill desire is to kill my heart altogether."

I read this in an email this morning. It speaks so clearly to where my heart is lately. Wrestling with God over my heart and the fear of relationships. I feel like I've been throwing a spiritual temper tantrum, because I can't control things. I don't want to get hurt and I don't want to hurt another girl. But I know we can't love without the reality of getting hurt. Love is vulnerable.

Trusting God is a weird thing. In my own life, God's reality has been slowly but surely becoming more personal and real to me. I'm understanding Him more as a person and less of a concept. With that, assenting to facts about Him is shifting to trusting His character and goodness. Relationships are the deepest area of pain in my life, which I'm sure is true for a lot of people. It is really easy to compartmentalize my life and keep the relationship aspect separate from God. It hurts to desire and have that constantly disappointed. And after years of "failed" relationships (several people have pointed out that ALL relationships prior to the person you marry have failed... so they aren't really failing), I start to doubt God's goodness in this area. Or, honestly, my biggest struggle is a lack of something concrete to hope in. It isn't that I don't think God is good, but somehow that His goodness doesn't apply to me in this area. It seems a stretch to me, to trust that God will help me work through these relationship fears and ultimately find love and get married. He never promised that in scripture. So what does it look like to be vulnerable before God, to bring Him my desire and trust that He is good, regardless of if this desire is ever filled? Will He still be good if I stay single for the remainder of my life, never losing the desire to be married? I think so. But that will take a massive shift in perspective... and a lot of grace and strength from God to withstand the on-going disappointment from unmet desire... "Hope deferred makes the heart sick."

But I know that checking out and killing the desire in me is a sure path to despair. Our desires come from God, I think. So it feels like it's a weird waiting, trusting game with Him. But maybe it isn't a game. Maybe He is very intentional and precise and tender with the process. Maybe the timing is crucial to developing us into the people He wants us to be? I'm not sure...

Self-Worth

I'm stealing this topic from a conversation with a friend recently. Several friends, actually, in various forms, have been discussing this.

How do we maintain a healthy view of our self-worth?

I think it is safe to say, first, that we all, as humans, have intrinsic worth because we were created in the image of God. We wear the stamp of divinity. More than anything else in creation, we resemble God.

Further than that, God likes us. He has a unique love for each of us and He finds joy in all the various idiosyncrasies and mannerisms that we find awkward or alienating. We matter to Him and He delights in who we are. We are all uniquely special to Him, not just as a collective humanity. He chooses us, because He wants us, not because He is obligated to love us even though we might feel unlikable. I think that our over-use of "For God so loved the world" has cheapened the depth and reality of God's love for us. I know for me, it has been a slow process that is still on-going, to believe that God's love is real and personal, not just something He has to do because "God is love". When I really focus on the attention that the God of the universe places on me... I am deeply humbled, comforted and grateful. What is man, that He should notice us? But He does... and His first thought and feeling towards us is infinite tenderness...

Unfortunately, most of us can't hang on to those thoughts consistently. I know I don't. Instead, I am prone to wander, letting my gaze shift to seeking validation from my peers and relationships. And when I do that, I become a taker, not a giver. That's what I'm wrestling with right now. How do I find my self-worth and identity in God? Because when I don't, I start to become insecure, wrestling deeply with whether or not I have anything worth giving to people. I become a slave to being liked. And all my energy goes into performing, jumping through hoops to stay on everyone's good side. That's exhausting.

The more dangerous part, it seems, is to approach dating relationships with this kinda of gaping hole in my self-image. I haven't figured that out yet, so it makes me very, very cautious and hesitant to even consider "getting back on the horse". I have hurt so many girls, because I have blindly stepped into relationships without a firm sense of who I am. I've let their interest in me or affirmation of me soothe my insecurities and validate me, only to find that's a bottomless pit. Oh, to know then what I know now. How many hearts would not be broken? I can say this with confidence: If we try to feel okay about ourselves by being in a relationship, we're setting ourselves up for deep pain. And further than the personal pain we will cause ourselves and that special someone, we are setting that relationship up to be completely narcissistic and impotent for furthering the kingdom of God... It seems so easy to say, but how difficult to live out! Everything about our culture, even within the Church, places so much emphasis on finding a spouse. And it's complicated further because it is a God-given desire for most of us!

I'm pretty sure I will one day be a better husband and father if I learn to daily rest in who I am to God and find my identity in Jesus Christ. Then, from within that deep love and affirmation from the God will never leave me or forsake me, I'll be safe and free to spend my life being vulnerable and trusting and sacrificing, not needing so desperately for people to make me feel liked...

I am treasured by God. So are you. Maybe we need to tell each other this more often, for the times we forget...

A Hundred Dollars!

Troy and Erin bet me $100 that I wouldn't play Britney Spears' 'Baby One More Time' on Saturday. I did. They paid up...