Oceans of Inquiry

Summer '05

Last night, I told our youth group a tiny bit about what I was like in high school.  They were surprised when I said that I was a complete snob--apparently, they don't see me as a person who struggles with snobbery, which is kind of a nice thought.  Maybe I've beaten it down enough for people who meet me now not to notice it right away.

Dear Mr. B,

     I am not sure if you will remember me; I was a physics student of yours.  I am writing to apologize for my arrogant and cruel attitudes and actions towards you. You were incredibly long suffering towards me--despite my treatment of you--and that is one of the many things that cause me to remember you as one of the most humble people I have ever met.  I, however, chose to despise that sweet virtue, and instead acted callously and viciously against you.  I am deeply sorry for this.  Will you please forgive me?  

      I remember that you had a heart for the homeless and needy, and chose to make yourself poor so as to live amongst them and to show them the heart of Christ.  This is something I deeply respect; I pray that I could have such a selfless heart that is so bent towards Christ that I could do the same out of love for Him and others.  May God bless you for your kindness towards me and all the others; may He have blessed you all these years.  

I was just trying to go to bed, and trying to pray, and felt the need to confess all the dour, sinful things I've been feeling about myself.  I don't know if this is true, but it seems like it might help me to repent of them if I actually release them from my mind.  So, here it goes...

How often do we use that phrase to indicate the foolishness of modern society? We talk about the "old days" (as if any of us can really remember them anyway) and how modernity is saturated with microwave solutions that don't really work.

And then we turn around and talk about the fact that grace is instant. No microwave or refrigeration required; just believe in your heart and *poof*! Of course, those of us who have been around the block for our entire lives understand that there's more to it than that. We have justification (by grace, of course) and sanctification and all of these other words that we apply to the process of becoming more Christ-like, but for the most part, we market God as an inst-fix to your every ailment.

While I was driving through...Indiana? I'm not sure which state; it was a long drive. Anyway. When I wasn't on the phone or singing with the radio (not Christian CDs...call me heathen) I had these little mental conversations with God. And then I hit a "whoooooa" point.

I haven't really been walking away from my faith over the past few months, but I haven't really been pursuing God, either. It's like being in a boat and not using the oars. Currents and waves and whatnot push you around wherever they want to and you suddenly realize "crap, the dock is way over. . .uh, where?" So then you (or I, anyway) commence rowing in any general direction. Rowing frantically with no real idea of how effective your efforts are is exhausting, and I'm tired. And then it hit me: insti-grace. Believe Him and be...saved.

Sadly, the thing keeping me from fully being immersed in this amazingness is myself. And I know it. My brain is just...overactive or something.

Ok, interrupted to go do more packing of junk, so I leave you with lyrics (yes, I have a song for pretty much everything)

Where am I today, I wish that I knew
'Cause looking around there's no sign of you
I don't remember one jump or one leap
Just quiet steps away from your lead

I'm holding my heart out but clutching it too
Feeling this sort of a love that we once knew
I'm calling this home when it's not even close
Playing the role with nerves left exposed

Standing on a darkened stage
Stumbling through the lines
Others have excuses
But I have my reasons why

We get distracted by the dreams of our own
But nobody's happy while feeling alone
And knowing how hard it hurts when we fall
We lean another ladder against the wrong wall

And climb high to the highest rung
To shake fists at the sky
While others have excuses
I have my reasons why

With so much deception
It's hard not to wander away
It's hard not to wander away
It's hard not to wander away
~Reasons Why, Nickel Creek

(My apologies to the fellow who coined that as one of the most irritating phrases in English.)

The general consensus is this: life would be much easier if we had formulas for how to make it work. We get annoyed when we can’t make things operate efficiently, effectively and excellently right out of the bag or within a reasonable amount of time. (Who decides what “reasonable” is, I do not know; it may just be instinctual.) I don’t “get” rules, but I do get angry when I feel like I’ve tried everything, and still don’t get the desired results.

Realizing that I have this mentality helps me understand why I am where I am in my relationship with God. I’ve been treating it like it is a formula. I want a return on my long years of collecting God-data, but so far, the experiment isn’t going anywhere, because the damn function just won’t plug and play. So, fine, I’ve said. If you won’t run, I’m not going to waste my time collecting more data.

I mean, come on—I should be past the very simple act of believing that God actually loves me. If we count from my first profession of faith, I’ve been a Christian for 17 years. Yet on the scale of Christian maturity, this issue places me at gestation. I’m like a sideshow freak: The Grown Woman with a Giant Brain Who Wins Trivial Pursuit From the Womb! What piece of vital information am I missing? I thought I’d been so careful in my note-taking, my deep probing, my statistical research.

I have the facts.

And yet, I am nothing. I have not love.

When I first met Corey, my fascination with him began instantly. This was a ways before I knew much about him. Sure, I noticed the obvious physical traits—those eyes and their exuberance still make me ache as I write this, even though we’re married, and he’s just across the room in bed. (I’m pretty sure “I had to see your eyes” isn’t an acceptable reason to wake him up.)

His eyes captivated me because they supplemented what everything else about him was already screaming: he loved me. He had no real idea who I was, and what he did know, he didn’t particularly like, but he loved me. I believed it, even though it made me uncomfortable. When he looked at me, I knew somehow that I could tell him anything and it wouldn’t change his love. I suspected that telling him things might even cause his love to be expressed even more freely; my suspicions were later confirmed. (The combination of these qualities was later defined as Zest, and it was decided that this was a crucial facet of marriageability.)

I realize this sounds utterly cheesy, and even suspect, coming from a newlywed. But if you ask all the girls who were around me that week, and my mom, I was hooked way before I knew him well. And it really was not the normal crush. I saw that he loved everyone the same way he loved me. Sometimes now this bothers me, because he still loves everyone, and when I’m being a bitch, I feel like other people should have less love, instead of me being content with having a different love of his on top of his universal love for people. But most of the time, this love he has just amazes me—I’ve really never met anyone else who has it quite like he does, and I don’t know how he does it, because frankly, people are downright annoying a lot of times, and he just laughs and loves them anyway. (Okay, so he makes fun of them, too, but he does the same thing to their face, and usually it makes them laugh.)

I don’t feel like the love he has for me is somehow less legitimate just because he loves everyone else, too. It’s not like he walks up to people and hands them a ration card and says “This is the love I have for you, and I’m only going to show it this way, because that is just who I am.” The man just loves you the best he can in the way he best knows how to love you. It is uniquely experienced, even though it’s universally experienced.

My point obviously is that I don’t often have the problems with Corey’s love that I have with God’s love, even though there are so many qualities of Corey’s love that are the same as his Father’s. And the reason that I don’t have these problems isn’t because I knew so much about him and then understood his love for me, it’s because I recognized that love and then, because I loved him back, I started to find out more and more about him. I never felt like I would be a bad friend if I didn’t know something about his past, but I wanted to know all I could so that I could be the best friend to him.

It seems like the exact opposite is true of God and me. Whenever I’m feeling unloved or unloving, I do my best to find out something new that will endear Him to me, or maybe make Him see I am worth showing Himself to, since I’ve been such a good researcher. I interact with Him like it’s rocket science, and that the right mix of chemicals will do the trick, when an experience with the equivalent of His “eyes” is what will actually do it.

I need to know God, not just about Him. I want to climb onto Jesus’ lap, and rest my head on His shoulder. I want to hear Him laugh and listen to his voice rumble in His chest. I want to kiss Him and feel His warm breath on my head. I want to see His smile, and I want His eyes to tell me how much He loves me. I want to believe He loves me.

I don't know how this verse ties in exactly, but it just came to me:
“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

So a few week ago, I'm taking a shower and for whatever reason I start thinking about my life and trying to figure out what it is that I'm doing exactly.  I think in some respects, I live my life in fear that I'm somehow messing up things or that I'm not actually going to get a chance to do what I'm supposed to do.  Lately, I've been trying to figure out what direction God wants me to go with my life.    

"To know, know, know her/is to love, love, love her . . ."--The Beatles