Chapter 1

4/12/16

 

We live in a society where everyone seems to only want what they can expect or control; in that kind of life I don’t feel there’s any sense of adventure; there’s no sense of wonder or fear. People are content in being told what they believe and why, never stopping to ever ask questions and seek answers. I could never live like that again. I had once; I tried to conform, and that was a weight I couldn’t bear. It was nothing more than the weight of expectation that everyone I loved and society itself had put on me without realizing it, and still they really don’t understand; I mean how could they?

 

There comes a time when you have to step away from popular opinion, and all society says you should be and why, what you should do, how you should do it, and how you ought to look in the process. You see, I’m from the south, but anywhere you go in this country, the reality is the very same; we’re all in a sense fighting for acceptance whether we realize it or not; we’re all fighting to belong. It’s my belief just from living and what I’ve read from the Bible, that God made us for relationships, the most important one being with Himself, who is the very source of who we are and why. I’ve realized just in my short time here that He has created us all differently, and that truly is the beauty and brilliance of His work. If we were all the same, this place called earth would be a boring place to be. First off, we’re all broken, and we all bring our own insecurities to the table, most of us just do our best to hide them, which I’ve always thought was strange because the question remains the same for me as it always has: Why are we so driven social acceptance, even at the risk of losing our identities, and who we are? God knows us, and made us, so what makes us think we know who we are better than He who created us? What can you hide from the One who knows every detail about you? That’s a question I think most people come across in their lives, they just don’t want to look any deeper than the surface, scared about what they may find, but it’s what we find in ourselves that leads us to God. When we take a reasonable and honest look at ourselves, we are broken and incomplete, having a desire to worship, but not knowing what. A.W. Tozer explained it in a way that makes sense, that it’s God that puts the desire within us to pursue Him. I mean just look at all the civilizations throughout history, all searching for acceptance or some kind of faith to hold on to beyond themselves. They knew there is something beyond us, and we know the same thing; some of us are in search for it, and some of us have found it, or He has simply found us; He gave us a desire to seek Him, He’s just given us the choice to accept or reject the evidence.

 

I consider myself a traveler, sojourner, and a pilgrim; I  stop here and there to rest while on this earth, but I’m on the road to a place beyond all this; it’s my hope and my ultimate goal; as broken as I am I make some choices I do because I have a hope and love in me that I want to show other people, because if there’s one thing I’ve realized in my short time here it’s that people need hope, and we’re all searching for it; there has to be something beyond this world we know, because this world we’ve come to know can be a cruel and cold place, and yet there is kindness, love, and humility, you just have to pay close attention, and we all ought to seek to be those things in the lives of others anyway, no matter what your belief system is. Where we’ve gone wrong is this whole idea that life is about self; pleasing yourself, making a name for yourself in any way possible. That is such a vain and narrow existence, but that’s a way of life so many have been taught; it’s a way I was ultimately taught, and had to get away from, God forbid you went against the grain and started asking questions. Ultimately we all have this selfish tendency to live in a way that’s beneficial to us, whether it hurts someone else or not. I read and reflect on the words of Jesus, and He presents an idea that is counter cultural; that life is about glorifying God and not self, serving others rather than serving self, loving others rather than just ourselves; some come to realize this, and some don’t, stuck in the pattern of how we live, never asking why it looks so opposed to the way someone we call Lord presented it. If we truly believe His word is true and is right, we ought to start asking questions and seeking to change many things, with the Spirits guidance, because we can’t continue to live in the same patterns of selfishness and claim to be identified with Him; He said Himself that IF we love Him we’ll do what He says. I don’t know about most people, but to me that’s pretty cut and dry; there’s no getting around that or cutting corners; it’s absolute.

 

These are things that run through my mind constantly, I just don’t bother to share with people sometimes, because in my experience people don’t care to listen in all honesty. We get so stuck in our habits it causes a sense of opposition in us to hear that we’re wrong, and change seems like an impossibility. We fear change because we get used to our own way of thinking, wrong or right. My hope is more people will begin to question themselves, I mean the Bible says we should. The real adventure is stepping out of our fear into the unknown to find what we will learn along the way.