Stary Night

My journey of faith has not been easy. I started walking down the path of Christianity when I was a sophomore in high school. Before that I never went to church, read the Bible, or spoke to God really in any form. When I finally started to actually walk down this path in life, I quickly found that the road was not smooth, but full of bumps, pits, and patches of darkness. Faith my friends, has been one of the hardest things for me to embrace.

Over the past few years in college, God's presence has been really vague in my life (for lack of better words). The struggle of life, the pains of life, the brokenness of humanity have been extremely close- but God, he has seemed distance, especially when I thought I needed him the most. However, I am learning some different things on this trip. You see, on this trip I have had tons of time to reflect and do nothing. Being taken out of my routine like this, where I have nothing to do really, has caused me to actually sit and start to think. This posture has not come easy. For the first month of traveling I have spent the majority of my time worrying about finances, what I am going to do when I get back, and where I will go next. However, I am just beginning to enter into the beauty and simplicity of being ushered out of the normality of my life and entering into a new state of peace and rest.

Like most humans, it comes easy for me to blame God for what is going wrong in the world, as well as in my life. When bad things happen, rather then running to God, I lash out against God and ask him why things are the way they are. I think that this can be healthy at times (read the Psalms). But by staying with this mindset, I can also be blinded to what God is actually doing. Over the past four years, I have struggled with pride, which has manifested itself in my life through jealousy. I am learning that I want to be the best at things- the smartest, the most loved, the best at what I want to do. It has often caused me to be jealous of other people who are passionate about similar things. I will feel that they are "better" then me at something, and then an extreme feeling of jealousy will arise deep within me that chokes out my passion for life. This jealousy, or pride, has sadly been directed towards my closest friends. Once this happens, I tend to push these people who I love so dearly away. Many of you reading this have probably felt the brunt end of this- though you might not have realized it. It has been something, amongst other things, that has weighed me down for quite some time now. Rather then bringing it to God, I have often blamed him for it. Why doesn't he fix it? If it is holding me back from serving him, why won't he just get rid of it? These have often been thoughts that run through my head.

Last night I spent some time looking at the starts. So much, that I started to get a neck cramp; I might be permanently damaged from this. The stars are so bright up here in the country side of the Netherlands; way up in the North away from the big cities. As I was looking at the beauty, the vastness, the majesty, it started to dawn on me that rather then blame God for all the problems, why don't I run to him and trust him with the problems. I always thought that I had to fix them myself. I am learning more and more that I have problems that are beyond my ability to fix. Many of you also have problems that are beyond your ability to fix- maybe you have spent most of your time blaming rather then coming to God as well. I guess what I am trying to say is that life is short, really short, and we live in a world full of brokenness and hurt, but also full of much beauty and love. The problems are way too big for us, but not too big for God. I don't mean to sound religious or anything, this is just what I have been feeling lately. Hopefully it sticks because it kind of gives me a sense of hope. Life is too short to be pissed off and playing the blame game.

I went for a run this morning in the country side and I was surprised at how peaceful it was. I love those moments where I seem to stumble upon a truth that is so beautiful, it causes me to drop everything and just embrace it. I guess what I am trying to say through this whole post, is that God is not that hard to find. He's right there, we are just too busy to see him. If we slow down, if not just for a moment, and open our eyes, then I bet we would see something- I'm seeing something.