The Faith Essays, Part II

Whattup friends?! Hope the Christmas season is suiting you nicely! We've had a whirlwind of guests and I've loved every minute of it. I hope my home is always a sort of resting place for people traveling, visiting, or just wanting a change of scenery. 

So, you know how ages ago I was hoping to get some friends on board for contributing essays about faith to my little blog, here? You know, to spark discussion? And it went nowhere? (cooperative friends I have, eh? be jealous.) Do you remember that? Ya, well, I confronted a kind friend on the fact that he totally wrote a (what I, now, refer to as) faith essay. And did not submit it to me?! How dare he?! He repented of his selfish ways and told me to please publish it as the second faith essay to my series! So, maybe he didn't exactly ask me to "please publish it"... perhaps I had to manipulate him into letting me use it... and promise that I wouldn't link to his blog. (lame). But, that little hurdle did not deter this series! True to my narcissism, I decided, for the sake of the series, of course, to extend forgiveness to my friend and use his faith essay. (In hopes to encourage you and spark discussion...we'll see how that goes.)

Without further ado:

exiled or lost? (the life of a spy)

I must confess.

I have been totally and completely unmotivated this semester. The summer came and went and in its wake left me in a sort of rut.

I slept too much.

I ate too much.

I worried about myself.

I didn't really read.

I didn't really work.

I was visually annoyed at most things.

Anytime I tried to pick myself up and get some motivation for the future, it appeared to always come with some resistance. Nothing came easy. That feeling of resistance kept me paralyzed. I wasn't sure where to go. I really was annoyed because nothing seemed to be going the way I wanted it to. God was not working in my life. He wanted to me to do and be things, that I didn't want to do or be. So, I gave up.

I felt lost.

One of the most interesting things about motivation, is that it is almost always paired with ambition; and ambition always looks to the future. Most of the time you can interchange the words, motivation and ambition. Those two words seem to be in a sort of marriage. Of course they have different personalities, but, lets be honest, they really mean the same thing.

If we were going to parse the word (yes, the one word version) ambition and motivation. Maybe draw it on a white board. Or let them get busy, and have children, I think you might see two polarizations. (their children would be bipolar). On one side, there might be all of the verbs that business articles love so much.

hard work

dynamism

change

innovation

But, on the other side you might see all the things that those same business articles do not care to bring to light

egocentrism

greed

narcissism

indifference

pride

I stayed confused. I didn't want to be prideful. I didn't want to be narcissistic. or create indifference.

I stood still.

I kept hearing,

"Hey Chris, you GOT to be more ambitious"

I wasn't sure what that meant at the time. But I knew I didn't have it.

I think I wanted to be lost.

I wasn't sure who I wanted to be, so I decided I wanted to be lost instead. I wanted to wander. Life was better for other people, so, it made me question my relation to the God that I tried so hard to understand for years. I wanted to be exiled into the wilderness because the thought of conquering Canaan was too hard. I felt like one of the spies that came back from the promised land, and said, no, I can't do this; conquering life looks too hard. I would rather be lost in exile.

Why did God even want me to go to the states for school anyway? Why did I take religion? Why didn't I take something that I would come out with a kickass job? Why did God bring me to this place of uncertainty?

"If only we had died in Egypt! or in this desert!

Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?...

... And they said to each other 'we should choose a leader to go back to Egypt'"

I wanted to go back.

I wanted to make different choices.

I wasn't sure why I was in the place I was.

I felt ill-equipped to do any of the thing I wanted to do.

I think if the Israelites could have, they would have sat down in a car on top of a large hill, listening to Dashboard Confessional, writing in their journals saying 'life sucks', at that point in their history. They wanted to go back in time, they didn't like where they were, and thought, things were better back then.... if only it was a few years ago.... sure it wasn't perfect, and we complained back then, but, heck, it was better then this!

The Israelites didn't have faith.

The Lord said to Moses

"How long will these people treat Me with contempt?

How long will they refuse to believe in Me,

in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?

I love this quote by Jerry Seinfeld:

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it's movement. To live is to keep moving.

Movement is essential.

Faith is paramount.

Those are the two words that I think should be coupled together. I think Movement and Faith should be the words that come together in marriage.

Don't get me wrong, I still like, Motivation and Ambition.

But, I'd pick Movement and Faith any day of the week.

I think if you married movement and faith, you'd get:

Forward motion

Hard Work

Ambiguity

Trust

*My own emphasis added, with our friend's approval, of course.

I love how he couples faith with movement. They need each other. I think it's key to realize that without an element of faith, we would move nowhere. Faith is essential to life itself! Just think of the implications!