And I See You Standing There Wanting More from Me, and All I Can Do is Try

Hello, 5th day in Toronto. My, how tired you're looking already! Not getting enough sleep? Oh...working too hard, then? Hmm...then what could it be?

I'm tired. All. The. Time. It seems like every day a little more fight goes out of me and I placate myself by telling myself it's the "Christian" thing to do; church struggles usually end when the contenders forget who their General is, or one of them forgets he is a warrior at all.

I have such huge dreams for the next eight weeks! I cannot contain my enthusiasm to start things and evangelize and change lives so that I leave this place better for my being here. But...maybe my hopes are too high. Maybe I'm too white or western or unreligiousized by Bible College to truly appreciate their way of doing church. I have no problem with pews or hymns or dressing up to honour God or having services in their native tongue; however, I start to feel the below-the-surface burn when a church wants to grow but won't evangelize, wants more youth but won't relate to them, or wants a big scale revival service to start up their "life-support church" all over again instead of doing the work themselves. I am trying my very hardest not to judge, and I want to be as humble and respectful as I can. I just...I see the potential! I see the beautiful hearts in these people and the good things they desire. I want to want what they want...but I can't. I am passionate about raising up a new generation of believers who are brilliantly in love with God and who take their faith into their own hands. I cannot be okay with teenagers who believe in God because their parents do, or Christians who never pick up their Bibles or churches that are only inwardly focused. We are all the body. We are not in competition with one another. No one denomination is the be all and end all, nor does any one have perfect theology or complete knowledge of God. Maybe my problem is that I care too much.

Lately I seem to be only interested in reading from authors who wrote mainly in the '40s. C.S. Lewis is a constant book-marker, and Sunday I went with Jasmine to Chapters and bought a few books by Ray Bradbury. Oh boy, can that man ever write! One of the books is a collection of 100 of his short stories, and every single one I have read so far (5) is brilliant. I read them while I'm on the treadmill because it's motivation: if I want to read anything except the Bible, I better get exercising! It's a story called "Season of Disbelief," and follows the bitter thoughts of a seventy-two-year-old woman who cannot convince three ten-year-olds that she was once their age. She first tries telling them stories about her childhood and young adult years, but they accuse her of fibbing. She then digs through some old trunks and brings out several prized possessions from when she was young, but they steal those things away because they believe she stole them from another child. Standing in her house amongst her things, Mrs. Bentley is suddenly overcome by a memory of her late husband:

"It won't work," Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. No matter how hard you try to be what you once were you can only be what you are here and now. ...You can't really prove you were ever young. Pictures? No, they lie. You're not the picture."

I like to keep things for the sake of nostalgia. That way, every once in awhile when I chance upon the item, I'll be reminded and can be transported back to who I was in that moment.

This story rocked me. God has already been working on my heart, helping me let go of the material so I can live in the spiritual. This helped. A lot. When it's hard, when I'd rather pretend to be who I used to be instead of making myself who I want to be in this moment, I'll hold on to this.

A final thought. A friend and I discussed awhile ago the want to be a certain way by a certain time to impress certain people. For example, I want my hair to be long again sooooooooo bad by September so that it'll look awesome for the start of school. These aesthetic longings only serve to make me reach for something unattainable, or else something that won't really change me or the way people look at me but will only serve to boost my ego. However. I have come to realize that the only change that matters is a heart change; people who don't like me now won't like me any more just because my hair is longer. People who hate the person I've been, including myself, won't suddenly hate me less for being less thin, more tanned, or anything else I could find on myself that needs "improving." I have to soak my heart in God for anything to mean anything. "And they became as detestable as that which they loved" (Hosea 9:10b). What I love I will become. What I have loved I have become. I'm choosing to love God again, and I'm really hoping that through it I'll begin to be a little bit more like Him, too.