09.14.25
”I don’t know” refers to the fact that I’m at a strange crossroads in life at which I’ve thrown everything up to God and I don’t know where I am or where I’m going. I’m surprised and tired by what life actually is and I simply can’t afford to care anymore to strive for what I think I want or to fantasize about what I think I want. I don’t know what my life is anymore but one thing I do: Idolatry is just not sustainable in the face of reality! of day to day humdrum ordinary yep-this-is-it life. I can only bank on the fact that Jesus is giving me what He wants. (Not gonna explain why now. Maybe later when I have time for an entire dIScOuRSE.) Which is really to say, I can only bank on having just Jesus. That’s it!!!!!!!!!! I can only want Jesus, He has to be the best and greatest thing ever, and I’ve thrown up my hands because yeah. It seems obvious. But for good old plain and basic Christian me, He’s had to wrestle me in my heart of hearts out here to get me to admit that.
And now, He’s won. But I also admit: I’m waiting to really jump for joy at that. The battle isn’t over for me yet. Right now, I’m still grappling with that defeated self. (Ain’t that something?) I’m battling all this resentment, disappointment, and bitterness towards Him (for not giving me the things I’ve strived for and fantasized about all this time, the things I think I want) and this terrible short-sighted-vicious-laziness to top it all off as if my troubles weren’t enough already (“vicious” as in the adjective-form of vice). And there’s more. My dragon is pride of life; my ghosts are desires of flesh and eyes. And none of this makes my mountain-of-a-molehill work go away that is itself a constant conundrum to throw myself into and then heave with all my intellectual might to pull myself out of only so that I can dive right in and do it all over again with no guarantee of any immediate tangible reward (because again, I can only bank on having Him). But alllllllll this………. all this and at the end of any doggone or dogged or dog-tired day, I know that joy is coming because all this means that I’m the problem, not Him. (Again, not gonna explain now. Maybe another time.)
Everything I know and experience is screaming that He has to be everything I’ve ever wanted, needed, and more—Never-ending More—and that I desperately need Him to survive and to navigate just basic day to day life. There’s no legitimate alternative for me. I’ve been taught too well. None of the other ways and gods that man’s come up with under this sun has ever worked or can work. None are viable. Jesus alone is the one hope of any satisfaction in and through all of this…this… LIFE.
Without Him, all these frustrations I amass end at the ashes of despair. That’s it. That’s all they’ll ever come to. And I hate the thought of that. I shudder at the prospect of no fulfillment ever. (I need fulfillment!!!!) My frustrations would be zilch in the grand scheme of things, and I’d never get anything I’ve ever wanted or hoped for. But WITH Him???? …. Well, I think and I dream and I am daring to hope that my frustrations—if I let them die these little deaths of repentance—will be reborn as adoration. I’ve heard tell so many times (so many) and in so many forms (many forms) and from so many mouths (all my life!) that this Jesus is a Phoenix (yes you heard me right) who is worth the cinders of all the world aflame and more. The whole world and all its desires and dazzlement and sparkly lookism are going to ash, but He isn’t. He can’t. Because He’s already been there and back. (BACK.) And His power doesn’t just reanimate but metamorphoses—i.e. transforms for the better. What then is my little minuscule breath of life? I’m smoldering at this point—who knows, maybe still sparking. But I might as well give this ember to the only Cause that has the possibility of hope for life after death and, until then, for renewed life after each of these little deaths in between—of beauty reborn from despair. (And I so badly need beauty.)
So here I am. Content with that. No other options? So be it. I’m content to throw it all to Him and wait. I’m better accustomed to ashes; I’m not as perturbed to notice them now in my life or others’ as when I first started to notice them, because if He’s true, they signify not an inevitable end but the start of better beginnings.
I will sit here and quietly watch, abide, dive into the tasks and persons He’s set before me right now today, hope in grace, ask for mercy.
There’s literally naught else for me to do.
