Fighting Reality

Being a romantic isn't easy. It's great; I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's just not easy.

I'm a romantic, and that means I'm almost constantly engaged in a battle with reality. I'm fighting to transform this mundane experience into something precious and incredible. I'm fighting to believe tomorrow will always be even better. I'm fighting to believe I can reach my dreams.

Many people incorrectly understand this notion of fighting reality, and either destroy themselves or lock themselves in a controlling universe. I don't fight to control what goes on outside of me. That would be stupid.

I fight to change myself from the inside. I fight to believe the best of every day, regardless of what happens. I'm locked in a constant struggle with what reality tells me about the world and myself, because I believe something better can be brought out.

Often we're called weak, because we appear infinitely forgiving, or we appear as a doormat to be trampled. That's a picture - a snapshot in time. Without time, dreams become meaningless, and so we do. Look at our lives as a whole - look along our lives. We are changing the world piece by piece by believing in it.

So now I stand here, knowing my feelings, and fighting the feeling of insignificance that would destroy everything I've worked for. I'm not a significant person, but what I do now will be significant for the rest of my life. This is the truth we face beyond every day - beyond any "reality" of disappointments.

And today, fighting isn't easy. My world falls inwards, I'm afraid to talk with the people I care about, and it seems that all my actions are pointless. I sit in a tension between doing something and doing nothing, because I don't know why I'm doing it right now. Everything I've ever experienced says I will fail - I can't relate to people, I can't build friendships and relationships, and I can't be secure in myself. I wake up every day to fight this, because a small, quiet voice inside tells me that this fight will save many lives in the future. Including mine.

The Natural Order

So I think I've worked out what this exhausting, uncomfortable, burning feeling I get in some classes is all about. I think it's my frustrated calling surfacing and grabbing at my attention. Some days I feel like Jeremiah - I hold it in but it just burns inside me. The other day I was unsure that I wanted to go back to college. It felt too big, too challenging; and I was too unworthy. I'm starting to make sense of things, and the more I do so, the more I see that the answer comes from without.

I honestly can't wait for the day I figure this internal stuff out so I can get over myself and just serve others. Something tells me it's gonna take time and SOM isn't necessarily the answer. Character is not built on several hours a week face-to-face. It's built on a role model who does life with you.

Here's an interesting thought: what makes a successful minister is not talent, but character. What builds character is not a course, but a mentor. And now for the obligatory scripture quote: no student is above his teacher, but it is enough that he will become like his teacher.

I'm learning a lot now, but my future will be set not by what I do or don't learn, but by my decision to submit to a leader who can take me to my destiny. I believe with great conviction that God's plan is NOT for each one of us to re-learn every lesson that our leaders have learned, but to pick up from our leaders the thought and action patterns that make successful, lasting men and women of God. God will strategically position us, then, under the perfect leader to teach us what we need to excel. We just need to learn how to learn the Kingdom way now. I think apprenticeship is probably the best description of this. Or discipleship. Take your pick.

Take My Hand

Take my hand, because I'm scared. Take my hand, my eyes are closed. I've no idea what's ahead, and I want to run from what's behind.

My eyes, my head, and my heart: each sees a different world. My heart I know is right, but my eyes show me a shallow world and my head shows me a world of tormented souls. My heart is heavy - I carry their distress and cry out for them. It's no use. My will and my desperation can do nothing.

What can I do for you? Life is blazed across my hand, yet I can only receive. You never taught me how to give. I was left to see the world as it was - bare and raw. The words that tormented them at night, the pain they carried inside. The infirmities, the poisons and the traps of the mind. I saw it and I wanted to take it away. I saw futures that could be bright, shadowed by the workings of that other kingdom. I wanted to warn them - to yell out across the street. Don't believe this; never choose that; you can live your dreams.

Why am I so powerless? This feels like a curse - to know their needs and stand there powerless. I deserve their torment, and escaped only by grace. Take my hand now, because I can't do it alone. I need a quiet strength beside me.

Hold me tight. I don't think I'm alive anymore...

Some Journey

As with most of the things in my life that I have realised I desperately wanted to do, traveling the world is a goal I've come to very slowly. This should probably come as no surprise to me: half the love interests I've had live overseas now... and the other half were born there.

I always thought that I was happy with Australia - that it was big enough. People think I'm crazy for sitting on a train eight hours of the day to go to bible college and back. The truth is I love it. I love being in different places, different atmospheres, discovering new things constantly.

I have no idea who I am right now, but I'm starting to get the feeling I'm on a very long road. I thought my life was planned - I thought the next ten years of my life could be mapped out. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll be happily settled in another country by then. Maybe I'll have traveled the world and built relationships in many churches by then.

I don't know what I'm going to be doing, but I know I want it. There's some kind of a small, half-seen, mostly-felt glimpse of the future in me and thinking of it makes me a little light-headed and teary.

When we make the decision to trust God, we make the decision to accept a life that is beyond our wildest fantasies. It's hard, but it's possible. Live the best life you can.

Start today.

Smaller

I see the corridoor narrowing before me - squeezing in and distorting things. I run forward, trying to get through.... and get stuck. Make me smaller! Make me fit!

I once had this strange idea that great people were big people - that great men and women of God were competent and assured people. Now I find that if I cannot be small enough, I cannot advanced. I don't need to be tougher, I don't need to be stronger, I don't need to be smarter, and I don't need to try harder. I just need to be more reliant.

I need less of me. There doesn't need to be more of anything else - there's plenty enough of God all over the place. The problem is, He can only work when there's less of me. Less fear, less competence, less anxiety, less overpreparation, less overanalysis.

People seem to have the mistaken view that small is fearful. This is wrong. Fears are big. Small is accepting everything in your stride, and responding when a response is due. Small is daring to do the great things without waiting to be a great person.

Now I will become smaller. And I will move my dreams up a notch. Not because I want the glory, but because I want the faith.

Pieces in the war

Looking at pieces of a war. A war so big I cannot see it. A war so convoluted I could not even tell start from end. The pieces move, time goes on. I want to cry out, but I don't know who to. I want to close my eyes, but I can't. I retreat and bury my head. I run far, far away. I escape the chaos of the war.

I'm sorry I closed my eyes. I'm sorry I ran away. I don't know what else to do. I don't know what I need to say.

There's no master plan to this chaotic world. No winners, only the lost and the broken, looking to survive. They march past in their shackles, bound by guilt and hate. They walk past me in the street, pretending it's all ok. I want to reach out and help them - but they've buried their pain so deep. To confront it would simply damage them; it wouldn't set them free.

I look around in vain, for my brothers and my sisters. I search for those who would heal a world in pain, and set the captives free. That I should be so lucky, if I found one in ten who'd dare to dream so big. Save them from hell? To do that we must save them from themselves.

Change a city, change a nation. I'd dare to dream it can be done. Change the nations, change the world. I need more than one in ten! Brothers, sisters, please be free! Let my tears touch your hearts. Dream so big you cannot feel the nails in your hands. Dare to believe the burden you bear can reach out to every man.

And all of this for nothing, if I cannot help them choose. So I'm waiting for the sky to fall, and my world to be renewed....