I don't know if I'm getting caught up with what I see the world offering to me or I'm just unimpressed. I've been reading Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller's most recent book, which chronicles his "leaving home" journey across the Western half of the United States with his then-acquaintance now-best-friend. Last Saturday, between waking up at 1 pm and taking a nap at 4 pm (I better cherish these days as a college student...) I stumbled across this:
"I tend to think life is about security, that when you have a full year's rent you can rest. I worry about things too much, I worry about whether or not my ideas are right. I worry about whether or not people like me, I worry about whether or not I am going to get married, and then I worry about whether or not my girl will leave me if I do get married. . . and all of it, perhaps, because I bought into Houston, one thousand square miles of concrete and strip malls and megachurches and cineplexes, none of it real. I mean it is there, it is made of matter, but it is all hype. None of the messages are true . . . There doesn't seem to be any science saying any of this stuff matters at all. But it feels like it matters, whatever it is; it feels like we are supposed to be panicking about things. I remember driving down I-45 a few months ago and suddenly realizing the number of signs that were screaming at me, signs wanting me to buy waterbeds, signs wanting me to watch girls take off their clothes, signs wanting me to eat Mexican food. . . And it hit me that, amid the screaming noise, amid the messages that said buy this product and I will be made complete, I could hardly know the life that life was meant to be. Houston makes you feel that life is about panic and the resolution of panic, and nothing more. Nobody stops to question whether they actually need the house and the car and the better job. And because of this there doesn't seem to be any peace, there isn't any serenity. We can't see the stars in Houston anymore, we can't go to the beach without stepping on a Coke bottle, we can't hike in the woods, because there aren't any more woods. We can only panic about the clothes we wear, panic about the car we drive. . .We drive around in a trance, salivating for Starbucks while that great heaven sits above us, and that beautiful sunrise is happening in the desert, and all those mountains out West are collecting snow on the limbs of their pines, and all those leaves are changing colors out East."
I didn't know I was unimpressed with God until last night when I was sitting at Starbucks with Ragan and Andy. Ragan was telling us about a chapter she had read out of a book called 90 Minutes in Heaven. As the three of us talked about heaven and Ragan tried her hardest (bless her sweet little heart) to describe the description of heaven in this book, I became ashamed. I realized that I'm waiting for God to prove He is worth it to me. Someone came up to talk to Andy and he said "Hold on man. I'm in the middle of hearing a really intense story and there is nothing I'd rather be hearing right now." How often has the Lord tried to speak to me, tried to reveal little snippets of His glory to me, and in response I have I rolled my eyes and turned away to talk to someone else? Andy hit it right on: There should be nothing I'd rather be hearing right now.
How much have I missed out on by becoming consumed with everything that has nothing to do with God? How much has my skepticism that God really can do anything, really can reveal himself to me, really can answer my prayers, limited my ability to receive Him?
I am unimpressed with God, and it's my own skepticism that limits His power to work in my life.
1 comment:
Hey, it's cool to hear your thoughts and feelings. Even though you were the blue-eyed blonde and I was the brown-eyed brown haired girl, and our personalities are different now, we are still a lot the same when it comes to perspective. It's nice to read some of what we might talk about if we lived in the same place and hung out at Starbucks together. Love you.(Am I the only person in the world who knows about this blog? Or just in the fam?)
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