(This is me not working on my make-up work. Whoops.)
I don't hear God speak directly to me in a very clear, real way very often.
In fact, there have been many times that I've gone many seasons without hearing God's voice clearly, and in my pride and selfishness, I've had to struggle through jealousy of so many of my friends who have had amazing experiences where God has spoken to them in their times of prayer. Cornerstone folks, it was very similar to the Coke video we watched in the service this weekend...I felt jipped with only 8 oz. of Coke, when all my friends were walking around with 2 liters or more.
Well, last year God helped me open my eyes a bit and realize how wrong I was in my thinking. He basically smacked me on the back of the head and said, "What, you don't think I'm trying to get your attention all the time? Look around you!! I am doing so much all around you, speaking through my followers, through my creation, through pastors, sermons, books, etc., and you think I'm not trying to speak to you?"
In that moment, when I did hear his voice directly, prayer that was actually a conversation and not just a one-way street, all I could really do was hide my face. As God poured his words into my mind, I felt the need to just stop talking...his words were completely overwhelming...it was the God of the Universe, speaking to ME! Now, to the point that God was making in that moment, he had been (and still does) speaking to me in so many different ways already, every single day, even in every single moment. But, in that specific moment there, it was quite different. It was God's direct words...and all I could do was hide my face and listen, completely overwhelmed.
I had another one of those experiences last night. In the Gathering service at Hope, we had our time of communion, which tends to take a while with around 1300 people there, even with like 9 stations. I hopped up right away with my one good leg to take communion before I would have had to wait in line with my crutches, and I had the rest of the time to sit in the pew, taking time to pray. And as I did, God met me in that prayer.
Honestly, I don't remember everything that I was praying at that moment, and that was less than 24 hours ago. Much of it was probably me rambling some religious speak, praying the "right" things. But in part of the prayer, I was praying with a lot of the thoughts from last night's post that I finished up after the Gathering, about turning back to God after knowing that I messed up, and unsure of how to really come back to Him...how to really humble myself, whether he was really meeting me there, or whether I wasn't really coming to him fully...in the language of the last post, whether I was coming with all of my heart, including the inmost parts, instead of just coming with the surface gunk. And then, he spoke, taking my prayer in a new direction.
"You're going to have to take a step of faith, Tom."
It totally caught me off guard...here I was rambling in thought about something different, and these words were ever-strong in my head. Before I even knew that I was in a direct conversation with the living God, I reactively asked, "A step of faith? Well, what do you mean? What is this about? Am I going to know where this step will take me?"
"Yes...but not all at once, and not right now. I will show you one step at a time, and you'll have to take that step, not knowing what the next one is, but knowing I will provide it."
"Ok....well, what's the first step?"
"PREPARE."
It was a this moment that I stopped...it finally sunk in that God was speaking to me, and I didn't have words anymore...I put my face in my hands, completely overwhelmed, just listening to this last word echoing in my head.
"PREPARE."
After simply sitting there with my hands in my face, completely overwhelmed, other thoughts started slowly coming into my head. In fact, they have been slowly ever since.
So, God does have something planned, something that is going to take a step of faith...well, probably many steps of faith, one at a time. I don't even know what the eventual next step is, whether it's something specific in ministry, some kind of mission work, something to do with seminary, or whatever. I just know that God has something planned that he wants me to prepare for. This first step of faith is preparing for something...but I have not a clue what. Just prepare.
I'm beginning to wrestle with how I am to prepare. That's the hard thing, see, I don't really know where I'm going with this, just that I need to prepare myself for a step that's coming. Part of this is confirmation for where I am right now, as a college student in the Religion major and ministry minor. As a student, I am naturally in a state of preparation, as I'm learning all kinds of information and wrestling through issues that are going to prepare me for whatever I end up doing. But, I know there's more, otherwise I don't think God would have been so direct with me.
The first thing that comes to mind is to prepare myself through my knowledge of the scriptures. I need to dive in to the Word and absolutely fall in love with it, letting it sink in to all parts of my life. I need to really become a follower and disciple of Christ by really digging into the Scriptures with all that I have...not just looking up random bits of scripture here and there (which most of the time is for a paper that I'm writing for class), but really reading it, really learning it, really growing from it. If I'm to prepare for something that God has for me that's going to require a step of blind faith, I had better know God's Word better than I do now, so I really know what my faith is in as I step out.
This will be a challenge for me. As I mentioned, it's not a regular habit for me to daily dive in to the scriptures in depth...maybe a verse here or there, but nothing really in depth. Nothing that I'm really growing from, or that's really preparing me for something. Not really as a spiritual discipline of regularly devoting myself to learning the Word. But, this is the first step of faith, which will also be a step of discipline. I need to get into the Word big time, in order to prepare for something that's coming.
Beyond that...I'm not sure how else I should be preparing yet. What I do know is that I need to prepare...because that's what God told me.
More to come on this, I'm sure. I'm still a little boggled by the whole thing, so maybe clearer thoughts will come with time. More likely, when the time is right, God will reveal each step that I need to take, one at a time.
Here we go!
-Tom
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Gameboys and Gunk
When I was a kid, my parents gave me a rule. I had a Gameboy color, and I loved that thing...specifically, whatever the new Pokemon game was (probably yellow version...classic). But, the rule was this: I could play at home if my homework was done, but I was not allowed to take my gameboy on the school bus with me and play on the ride to and from school. They were clear that there needed to be priorities, and that on the ride to school, that was school time. It wasn't a time for video games, it was a time for school.
Well...I nodded and smiled like any good 5th grader..."oh of course, Mom and Dad. I won't take it on the bus." In the back of my mind...I knew what I was gonna do. I was gonna sneak that sucker into my backpack and pull it out once I was on the bus, and I was gonna try to beat that next gym leader, gosh darnit...and no stupid rule from my parents was gonna stop me. Plus, I was so sneaky and crafty that there was no way I would be caught! No...I was wayyy too good for that too happen. I could do whatever I wanted, and my parents would never know.
One day, I had a bottle of hair gel in my backpack for some reason, and like any 5th grader, I completely forgot it was in there with how I treated my bag, throwing it around like there wasn't anything in there. Well, the bottle of gel exploded, leaving nasty, goopy hair gel all over the inside of my bag. It wasn't until I got home in the living room that I realized my mistake. Gel was now coating my binders and notebooks, and I needed to get them out and clean them off. I asked my dad to come and help me with this, and we began slowly pulling out the items that were covered in gel. First, the binder. Then, the notebook and the planner and agenda. Then, my dad's hand reached further in the bag. It was exactly at that moment that I had forgotten about my "brilliant" plan, thinking I could do what I wanted and hide the truth from my parents. Instinctively, I tried to reach into the bag before he could, one last attempt at hiding the truth from my dad that I had been playing my Gameboy on the bus...but it was too late. His hand was already in the bag, and he slowly pulled the Gameboy, half-covered in goopy hair gel, out of the bag.
My heart immediately sunk. I was busted. I was SO busted. I mean, I was really, really busted. I had asked my dad to help me clean out my bag, with hair gel covering all of my school materials, and he stuck his hand in there deeper than I thought he would, and pulled out what I thought I could hide from him. And I was in big, big trouble.
I felt terrible. Well, to be honest, I kind of only felt terrible because I got caught, and there were going to be consequences. I was going to be grounded, and I wasn't going to be able to have fun like all of my friends. But, I also felt terrible because I had been hiding something from my parents, and once it was unveiled, I felt foolish. Hiding things from my parents always seemed like a good idea at the time, but it never ended well...and this was no exception. I even just felt bad because I had disobeyed my parents. They had set a rule and expected something of me, and I had let them down. I did what was wrong, and my conscious was ringing loud in my ear.
I was most definitely punished that day. There were consequences. The Gameboy was taken away, and I was grounded. (I can't remember how long for, but I do remember that it was long enough for me to remember I shouldn't do that again). And yet, my dad didn't just yell and scream at me in anger and punish me that way. He most definitely did discipline me, but in it he explained to me why what I did was wrong, and why I couldn't do it again. There were consequences, but he didn't set those consequences out of his anger at my rebellion, but rather out of his love for me.
Now, when I look back on this event 10 years ago, I know why they set that as a rule. I understand why it was forbidden, and why I should not have done it. I understand why my dad was disappointed in me, and why he punished me. You see, my dad loved (and still loves) me, and he wanted me to learn a few lessons...that I could not disobey my parents' rules, that I could not try to hide things from them, and that I could not lie to them. Out of love, I was punished...and it wasn't fun. In fact, it really sucked. But I grew from that, and I did learn my lesson. Not to say I never hid anything from my parents again, nor that from then on I did exactly as they told me...but, to this day, that moment of being caught with the gel-covered Gameboy has stuck with me.
___
So many times, we try to hide things from God. We follow most of the rules, but there are one, two, or maybe even a few specific things that we just flat-out rebel against. We know it's wrong, but we do it anyways. We think that we can hide it in the deepest parts of our hearts where it won't be seen by anyone else, including God. As long as we are good on the surface, and as long as we are nice little Christians for the rest of the time, we'll be alright.
Well, because we're not perfect, there's some gunk that ends up in our lives, even on the surface. In our hearts, we have this nasty goop. We're often not aware of it, mindlessly going around doing whatever, until maybe we get to church and hear a sermon, or read scripture, or hear a song, or through some sort of conviction and realization that there is some gunk in our hearts that is covering everything else in there. Even the good things in our heart are partly covered by the gunk. At first, we'll try to clean it ourselves...but we just can't do it on our own.
So, we call out to God, and we ask him to help us clean out the gunk. He reaches into our hearts, grabbing our love for our friends, and he helps us remove the gunk of our desire to be popular and "cool" among everyone we meet. He reaches a little deeper, and finds the gifts he's given us that we can share with everyone around us, and he helps us remove the gunk of our pride, thinking that it's our gifts that we can use for our glory.
And then, he starts to reach deeper into our hearts. All the sudden, we realize where God's going, and we panic. We try one last time, one last frantic effort, to hide our deepest, darkest secret, the one we've been trying to hide from God and from everyone else around us. But, it's too late. God reaches his hands deep into our hearts, and he pulls out our flat-out rebellion, and he holds it up into the light in front of us.
Now, we know we're done. We're at the lowest of the low, as our deepest, darkest secrets, half covered in gunk no less, are in God's hands, held out in front of us. We're able to see these dark parts of our hearts clearly now, and we feel remorse. First, we feel bad, because we know there will be consequences. But, the conviction comes when we realize that we've been trying to hide something from our Heavenly Father who loves us beyond our understanding. We realize that we have been blatantly rebelling against God's commands, thinking we could do whatever we want...but, now we see the Almighty God, the One with the power beyond nature's worst catastrophes, catching us red-handed...and in our fear of him, we realize how foolish we really are.
There are consequences. But, in our broken state, in our moment of shame and guilt, God picks us up out of love. He's disappointed in what we have done, but he still loves us more than we could ever comprehend. He doesn't want us to feel shame, but instead to be convicted to change. He explains to us why what we have done is wrong, and why we must change. Out of his love for us, we are disciplined. But, from the consequences, we learn a lesson, and we learn why we must turn away from whatever this sin is in our lives.
As time passes, if we are fortunate enough, we even learn why God commanded it in the first place, and why God wanted us to stay away from whatever it was. God wants us to be free from all slavery, and so he gives us commands to live by. Yet, we continually disregard these commands, thinking we can do as we please. We think we can hide it from him, storing it in the deepest part of our hearts. We still try to live as sons and daughters of God, and we ask for forgiveness for all of the other things we continually mess up. We ask him to clean out our hearts, thinking of the gunk that rests in the surface.
But, our God reaches in deeper. He goes to the core, to the inmost parts of our hearts, where we keep our junk...because it's there, in the deepest part, that he truly wants to clean...even if it means creating our worst fear, of our darkest secrets being out in the open. And he does this out of his love for us, a love that nothing (NOTHING!!!) can separate us from (Rom. 8:38-39).
___
Ask God to remove the gunk in your life. He'll do that, and then he'll reach deeper...and it'll hurt. But, his love is greater than anything else, and through the pain comes a true freedom that nothing or no one else can provide.
Psalm 51:1-12 (NIV, v6 Amplified Bible)
Well...I nodded and smiled like any good 5th grader..."oh of course, Mom and Dad. I won't take it on the bus." In the back of my mind...I knew what I was gonna do. I was gonna sneak that sucker into my backpack and pull it out once I was on the bus, and I was gonna try to beat that next gym leader, gosh darnit...and no stupid rule from my parents was gonna stop me. Plus, I was so sneaky and crafty that there was no way I would be caught! No...I was wayyy too good for that too happen. I could do whatever I wanted, and my parents would never know.
One day, I had a bottle of hair gel in my backpack for some reason, and like any 5th grader, I completely forgot it was in there with how I treated my bag, throwing it around like there wasn't anything in there. Well, the bottle of gel exploded, leaving nasty, goopy hair gel all over the inside of my bag. It wasn't until I got home in the living room that I realized my mistake. Gel was now coating my binders and notebooks, and I needed to get them out and clean them off. I asked my dad to come and help me with this, and we began slowly pulling out the items that were covered in gel. First, the binder. Then, the notebook and the planner and agenda. Then, my dad's hand reached further in the bag. It was exactly at that moment that I had forgotten about my "brilliant" plan, thinking I could do what I wanted and hide the truth from my parents. Instinctively, I tried to reach into the bag before he could, one last attempt at hiding the truth from my dad that I had been playing my Gameboy on the bus...but it was too late. His hand was already in the bag, and he slowly pulled the Gameboy, half-covered in goopy hair gel, out of the bag.
My heart immediately sunk. I was busted. I was SO busted. I mean, I was really, really busted. I had asked my dad to help me clean out my bag, with hair gel covering all of my school materials, and he stuck his hand in there deeper than I thought he would, and pulled out what I thought I could hide from him. And I was in big, big trouble.
I felt terrible. Well, to be honest, I kind of only felt terrible because I got caught, and there were going to be consequences. I was going to be grounded, and I wasn't going to be able to have fun like all of my friends. But, I also felt terrible because I had been hiding something from my parents, and once it was unveiled, I felt foolish. Hiding things from my parents always seemed like a good idea at the time, but it never ended well...and this was no exception. I even just felt bad because I had disobeyed my parents. They had set a rule and expected something of me, and I had let them down. I did what was wrong, and my conscious was ringing loud in my ear.
I was most definitely punished that day. There were consequences. The Gameboy was taken away, and I was grounded. (I can't remember how long for, but I do remember that it was long enough for me to remember I shouldn't do that again). And yet, my dad didn't just yell and scream at me in anger and punish me that way. He most definitely did discipline me, but in it he explained to me why what I did was wrong, and why I couldn't do it again. There were consequences, but he didn't set those consequences out of his anger at my rebellion, but rather out of his love for me.
Now, when I look back on this event 10 years ago, I know why they set that as a rule. I understand why it was forbidden, and why I should not have done it. I understand why my dad was disappointed in me, and why he punished me. You see, my dad loved (and still loves) me, and he wanted me to learn a few lessons...that I could not disobey my parents' rules, that I could not try to hide things from them, and that I could not lie to them. Out of love, I was punished...and it wasn't fun. In fact, it really sucked. But I grew from that, and I did learn my lesson. Not to say I never hid anything from my parents again, nor that from then on I did exactly as they told me...but, to this day, that moment of being caught with the gel-covered Gameboy has stuck with me.
___
So many times, we try to hide things from God. We follow most of the rules, but there are one, two, or maybe even a few specific things that we just flat-out rebel against. We know it's wrong, but we do it anyways. We think that we can hide it in the deepest parts of our hearts where it won't be seen by anyone else, including God. As long as we are good on the surface, and as long as we are nice little Christians for the rest of the time, we'll be alright.
Well, because we're not perfect, there's some gunk that ends up in our lives, even on the surface. In our hearts, we have this nasty goop. We're often not aware of it, mindlessly going around doing whatever, until maybe we get to church and hear a sermon, or read scripture, or hear a song, or through some sort of conviction and realization that there is some gunk in our hearts that is covering everything else in there. Even the good things in our heart are partly covered by the gunk. At first, we'll try to clean it ourselves...but we just can't do it on our own.
So, we call out to God, and we ask him to help us clean out the gunk. He reaches into our hearts, grabbing our love for our friends, and he helps us remove the gunk of our desire to be popular and "cool" among everyone we meet. He reaches a little deeper, and finds the gifts he's given us that we can share with everyone around us, and he helps us remove the gunk of our pride, thinking that it's our gifts that we can use for our glory.
And then, he starts to reach deeper into our hearts. All the sudden, we realize where God's going, and we panic. We try one last time, one last frantic effort, to hide our deepest, darkest secret, the one we've been trying to hide from God and from everyone else around us. But, it's too late. God reaches his hands deep into our hearts, and he pulls out our flat-out rebellion, and he holds it up into the light in front of us.
Now, we know we're done. We're at the lowest of the low, as our deepest, darkest secrets, half covered in gunk no less, are in God's hands, held out in front of us. We're able to see these dark parts of our hearts clearly now, and we feel remorse. First, we feel bad, because we know there will be consequences. But, the conviction comes when we realize that we've been trying to hide something from our Heavenly Father who loves us beyond our understanding. We realize that we have been blatantly rebelling against God's commands, thinking we could do whatever we want...but, now we see the Almighty God, the One with the power beyond nature's worst catastrophes, catching us red-handed...and in our fear of him, we realize how foolish we really are.
There are consequences. But, in our broken state, in our moment of shame and guilt, God picks us up out of love. He's disappointed in what we have done, but he still loves us more than we could ever comprehend. He doesn't want us to feel shame, but instead to be convicted to change. He explains to us why what we have done is wrong, and why we must change. Out of his love for us, we are disciplined. But, from the consequences, we learn a lesson, and we learn why we must turn away from whatever this sin is in our lives.
As time passes, if we are fortunate enough, we even learn why God commanded it in the first place, and why God wanted us to stay away from whatever it was. God wants us to be free from all slavery, and so he gives us commands to live by. Yet, we continually disregard these commands, thinking we can do as we please. We think we can hide it from him, storing it in the deepest part of our hearts. We still try to live as sons and daughters of God, and we ask for forgiveness for all of the other things we continually mess up. We ask him to clean out our hearts, thinking of the gunk that rests in the surface.
But, our God reaches in deeper. He goes to the core, to the inmost parts of our hearts, where we keep our junk...because it's there, in the deepest part, that he truly wants to clean...even if it means creating our worst fear, of our darkest secrets being out in the open. And he does this out of his love for us, a love that nothing (NOTHING!!!) can separate us from (Rom. 8:38-39).
___
Ask God to remove the gunk in your life. He'll do that, and then he'll reach deeper...and it'll hurt. But, his love is greater than anything else, and through the pain comes a true freedom that nothing or no one else can provide.
Psalm 51:1-12 (NIV, v6 Amplified Bible)
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desire truth in the inner being;
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desire truth in the inner being;
make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
-Tom
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Dependence
It's funny how we look at our life one week at a time, one month at a time, a year, 4 years, and even more...and yet, life can change in the smallest moment of time. In just a split-second, everything can change.
January 24th at around 9:50am, I was playing indoor soccer on a gym floor as a part of a 1-credit class, and life was one thing. And then, in an instant, life was something very different. I went to change directions, my foot gripped the floor and didn't move with the rest of my body, and my ankle dislocated. I went to the ground, yelling out in pain, as my ankle pointed a direction it shouldn't. 1 second earlier, I had been running on two legs.
Funny how that happens.
All said and done, I tore all the ligaments in my ankle and broke my fibula right at the bottom down by the ankle. (For non-medical folks: Fibula = bone in your lower leg behind your shin bone, the Tibia) Clean break, nothing compound, but requiring surgery. That took place a week later, and I woke up from surgery with a plate and 7 screws in my fibula, and a long screw going through both the Tibia and Fibula, holding them together after I tore the tissue between the bones that holds them together. Since, I have been home recovering, returning to Hope this week just for classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I'll get a hard cast on Tuesday, which will be there for 6 weeks, through the end of March. Until then, it's all crutches or scooter...no weight on the left leg.
One second, I could walk, even run, on two legs. The next, only one leg. One moment, everything changed.
Since then, I have been slowly learning all the ways that things are going to be different for the next 6 weeks. There's the obvious, that I can't walk except with the help of crutches. I can't walk carrying anything in my hands. Walking is slower. It takes longer to get to class, to get to or from my car, to get anywhere. Making food is slower and much more difficult. Eating at Phelps doesn't happen unless someone carries my food for me. If there's something I need that's simply 8 feet away from me, it requires a much greater effort of crutching over to get it...and even then, I can't even carry it back to where I was. I can't pack up my stuff to move back into Hope, I can't shower normally, it takes way longer to change clothes...I could go on.
I am temporarily disabled. And with that, my dependence on other people has gone up dramatically. There are many things that I simply cannot do by myself, such as carrying my food from one place to another to eat. There are others that are dramatically more challenging to do by myself, such as open doors for myself. Already, I've been seeing how dependent I really am on other people around me. More interesting, I've been noticing how much I have been resisting this dependence with all that I am.
Call me an American...better yet, call me an American college student, because I love my independence. I love being able to go wherever I want, whenever I want. I love having my own place to live, that isn't my parents' house. I love being able to eat whenever I want, I love providing my own needs, getting things done by myself, accomplishing tasks depending only on my efforts and intelligence. I love my independence. And much of that is gone now.
One of the hardest parts of recovering thus far is the simple realization of how dependent I really am on people now. Or, probably more accurate, I've realized that I could try to be independent and do things by myself, but life would be about 100x easier if I would just be willing to humble myself and ask for someone to grab the door for me, to carry my food, or to pick something up for me. I could do things on my own, completely by myself...sure, I'd live. But, how much better would life be if I allowed myself to truly depend on others around me?
And just like that, I received a new insight into my relationship with God.
You see, I could depend on God. I mean, I know he's God, and he can do anything, so surely he could help me with anything I needed. But, 1, I'd much rather be independent and do things all by myself, or 2, I know he'll help me in a way I don't really want to be helped. (Like teaching me a lesson in dependency...).
These next couple months, I'll have a broken leg that I need to stay off of that forces me to depend on others around me. But for my entire life, I am weakened by my earthly condition. My spiritual broken leg shows up as my flesh, or my sinful nature. I am crippled by it, and because of it, I can't walk, I can't stand firm on two feet, and I can't reach out towards others, because I'm too busy holding on to my own crutches that help me walk by myself. See, I try to deal with my sinful nature by myself...I made these two crutches that I lean on, and they help me walk on my one good leg. And, I can kind of live like this. I mean, I can get by...I can survive. That's good enough, right?
That just sounds crazy put in those words...like I would think that I could truly do things all by myself with a broken leg. And yet, this is what I do with God! The God of the universe, the almighty creator, whose wisdom is beyond any human on earth...He stands and waits, desiring us to depend on Him. He's the only one who is really dependable anyways. Any crutch that I try to make to spiritually hobble through life is going to break eventually, and I'm going to fall, and try to catch myself on my two feet...but one of them is broken, and it's going to hurt.
(Ok...at this point, I think I have successfully killed this metaphor...but, still hang with me.)
Our God desires us to depend on him, and him alone. He is a jealous God, that demands that we love him more than anyone else. In his wisdom, he reminds us to put our hope in him and his kingdom to come, because anything else we put our hope in will let us down. No matter our inclination toward independence, God desires us to depend on him.
Dependence is a hard lesson to learn, whether it's in the little things of life after breaking a leg, or in our relationship with God, depending on his forgiveness rather than just our will-power to avoid sinning. Yet, this is a lesson I am only starting to learn, and one I'm sure I'll be continually learning about for the rest of my life. I will be praying that God continues to reveal to me the areas that I need to depend on him.
God, please teach me to replace my inclination to seek independence with dependence in you and your people.
_____
Sidenote, Another thing I've noticed in the beginning of depending on other people through my healing process...I have been fortunate enough to see the servant-hearts in so many people who have offered to help me with whatever they can...and it's been beautiful. With this injury, I've been given the unique opportunity to witness people serving those around them first-hand. This is something I know I wouldn't have been able to notice if I had continued to try and do everything independently.
If you've helped me with anything in the last 3 weeks...thank you. Not only for serving me, but for showing me your servant heart. May God bless you, and may you continue to serve others around you, and to serve him with that same heart.
-Tom
January 24th at around 9:50am, I was playing indoor soccer on a gym floor as a part of a 1-credit class, and life was one thing. And then, in an instant, life was something very different. I went to change directions, my foot gripped the floor and didn't move with the rest of my body, and my ankle dislocated. I went to the ground, yelling out in pain, as my ankle pointed a direction it shouldn't. 1 second earlier, I had been running on two legs.
Funny how that happens.
All said and done, I tore all the ligaments in my ankle and broke my fibula right at the bottom down by the ankle. (For non-medical folks: Fibula = bone in your lower leg behind your shin bone, the Tibia) Clean break, nothing compound, but requiring surgery. That took place a week later, and I woke up from surgery with a plate and 7 screws in my fibula, and a long screw going through both the Tibia and Fibula, holding them together after I tore the tissue between the bones that holds them together. Since, I have been home recovering, returning to Hope this week just for classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I'll get a hard cast on Tuesday, which will be there for 6 weeks, through the end of March. Until then, it's all crutches or scooter...no weight on the left leg.
One second, I could walk, even run, on two legs. The next, only one leg. One moment, everything changed.
Since then, I have been slowly learning all the ways that things are going to be different for the next 6 weeks. There's the obvious, that I can't walk except with the help of crutches. I can't walk carrying anything in my hands. Walking is slower. It takes longer to get to class, to get to or from my car, to get anywhere. Making food is slower and much more difficult. Eating at Phelps doesn't happen unless someone carries my food for me. If there's something I need that's simply 8 feet away from me, it requires a much greater effort of crutching over to get it...and even then, I can't even carry it back to where I was. I can't pack up my stuff to move back into Hope, I can't shower normally, it takes way longer to change clothes...I could go on.
I am temporarily disabled. And with that, my dependence on other people has gone up dramatically. There are many things that I simply cannot do by myself, such as carrying my food from one place to another to eat. There are others that are dramatically more challenging to do by myself, such as open doors for myself. Already, I've been seeing how dependent I really am on other people around me. More interesting, I've been noticing how much I have been resisting this dependence with all that I am.
Call me an American...better yet, call me an American college student, because I love my independence. I love being able to go wherever I want, whenever I want. I love having my own place to live, that isn't my parents' house. I love being able to eat whenever I want, I love providing my own needs, getting things done by myself, accomplishing tasks depending only on my efforts and intelligence. I love my independence. And much of that is gone now.
One of the hardest parts of recovering thus far is the simple realization of how dependent I really am on people now. Or, probably more accurate, I've realized that I could try to be independent and do things by myself, but life would be about 100x easier if I would just be willing to humble myself and ask for someone to grab the door for me, to carry my food, or to pick something up for me. I could do things on my own, completely by myself...sure, I'd live. But, how much better would life be if I allowed myself to truly depend on others around me?
And just like that, I received a new insight into my relationship with God.
You see, I could depend on God. I mean, I know he's God, and he can do anything, so surely he could help me with anything I needed. But, 1, I'd much rather be independent and do things all by myself, or 2, I know he'll help me in a way I don't really want to be helped. (Like teaching me a lesson in dependency...).
These next couple months, I'll have a broken leg that I need to stay off of that forces me to depend on others around me. But for my entire life, I am weakened by my earthly condition. My spiritual broken leg shows up as my flesh, or my sinful nature. I am crippled by it, and because of it, I can't walk, I can't stand firm on two feet, and I can't reach out towards others, because I'm too busy holding on to my own crutches that help me walk by myself. See, I try to deal with my sinful nature by myself...I made these two crutches that I lean on, and they help me walk on my one good leg. And, I can kind of live like this. I mean, I can get by...I can survive. That's good enough, right?
That just sounds crazy put in those words...like I would think that I could truly do things all by myself with a broken leg. And yet, this is what I do with God! The God of the universe, the almighty creator, whose wisdom is beyond any human on earth...He stands and waits, desiring us to depend on Him. He's the only one who is really dependable anyways. Any crutch that I try to make to spiritually hobble through life is going to break eventually, and I'm going to fall, and try to catch myself on my two feet...but one of them is broken, and it's going to hurt.
(Ok...at this point, I think I have successfully killed this metaphor...but, still hang with me.)
Our God desires us to depend on him, and him alone. He is a jealous God, that demands that we love him more than anyone else. In his wisdom, he reminds us to put our hope in him and his kingdom to come, because anything else we put our hope in will let us down. No matter our inclination toward independence, God desires us to depend on him.
Dependence is a hard lesson to learn, whether it's in the little things of life after breaking a leg, or in our relationship with God, depending on his forgiveness rather than just our will-power to avoid sinning. Yet, this is a lesson I am only starting to learn, and one I'm sure I'll be continually learning about for the rest of my life. I will be praying that God continues to reveal to me the areas that I need to depend on him.
God, please teach me to replace my inclination to seek independence with dependence in you and your people.
_____
Sidenote, Another thing I've noticed in the beginning of depending on other people through my healing process...I have been fortunate enough to see the servant-hearts in so many people who have offered to help me with whatever they can...and it's been beautiful. With this injury, I've been given the unique opportunity to witness people serving those around them first-hand. This is something I know I wouldn't have been able to notice if I had continued to try and do everything independently.
If you've helped me with anything in the last 3 weeks...thank you. Not only for serving me, but for showing me your servant heart. May God bless you, and may you continue to serve others around you, and to serve him with that same heart.
-Tom
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The First
This by no means is the first online blog that I've ever had.
In fact, it's not even the second, or probably even the third.
Many times I have created a blog, thinking that it would be something I would consistently post and update as a way to constantly be journalling, putting my thoughts into words that I could look back on at a later time and remember what I was thinking at that time, even if it was in an online, public setting rather than a personal and private. However, something has always gotten in the way...at times, the busyness of life. But more likely (and honestly), laziness has always crept in, and I have just fallen away from keeping it updated...to the point that I forget the password, or even the blog name itself, so even if I wanted to do a new post, I literally could not.
So, of course, I'm doing the sensible thing and simply making a new blog, exactly like I've done in the past, and hoping for a different result here. (side note...isn't insanity defined by Einstein as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? hmm...)
I found inspiration to start a new blog, if nothing else just to have a consistent blog that I can keep for hopefully a long time here. For one, I'm going to save the name and password so I don't literally lose the blog and have to start over again.
This blog will include a little of the personal "this is going on in my life" kind of stuff, but I'm hoping to verbalize what God is teaching me through scripture or prayer, or any concepts that I'm wrestling with and praying through. Although I am a college student who has gotten pretty decent at composing cohesive, well-flowing papers, there are no guarantees that all posts will be polished with a good flow and easy-to-follow structure...I'm sure there will be many of these that are as all over the place as my thoughts can be. Yet, that's often the point of writing them out...things are foggy and tend to swirl when kept in the mind, but when they are turned into spoken or written word, they take on form and meaning, and what you thought was just a bunch of random and confusing ideas turns into something pretty amazing.
So...here goes. I'm not sure if anyone will actually read this thing. But if you do...thanks. And, comment! I'd love feedback on any and everything that I'm thinking through with a post.
-Fife
In fact, it's not even the second, or probably even the third.
Many times I have created a blog, thinking that it would be something I would consistently post and update as a way to constantly be journalling, putting my thoughts into words that I could look back on at a later time and remember what I was thinking at that time, even if it was in an online, public setting rather than a personal and private. However, something has always gotten in the way...at times, the busyness of life. But more likely (and honestly), laziness has always crept in, and I have just fallen away from keeping it updated...to the point that I forget the password, or even the blog name itself, so even if I wanted to do a new post, I literally could not.
So, of course, I'm doing the sensible thing and simply making a new blog, exactly like I've done in the past, and hoping for a different result here. (side note...isn't insanity defined by Einstein as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? hmm...)
I found inspiration to start a new blog, if nothing else just to have a consistent blog that I can keep for hopefully a long time here. For one, I'm going to save the name and password so I don't literally lose the blog and have to start over again.
This blog will include a little of the personal "this is going on in my life" kind of stuff, but I'm hoping to verbalize what God is teaching me through scripture or prayer, or any concepts that I'm wrestling with and praying through. Although I am a college student who has gotten pretty decent at composing cohesive, well-flowing papers, there are no guarantees that all posts will be polished with a good flow and easy-to-follow structure...I'm sure there will be many of these that are as all over the place as my thoughts can be. Yet, that's often the point of writing them out...things are foggy and tend to swirl when kept in the mind, but when they are turned into spoken or written word, they take on form and meaning, and what you thought was just a bunch of random and confusing ideas turns into something pretty amazing.
So...here goes. I'm not sure if anyone will actually read this thing. But if you do...thanks. And, comment! I'd love feedback on any and everything that I'm thinking through with a post.
-Fife
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