rocks (alt. title: i'm tired of waiting. alt title: "why are we naked?") ~m

intro - this is awkward

Oh hi. It's me. Mason. It's been...months since I've written a blog. Well, let's back up. It's been months since I've completed a blog. Riley's probably pretty frustrated at my lack of organization skills in the drafts column of our admin page. Sorry, my friend. It's a graveyard (GraceYard?) of half-written blogs that were abandoned because they just didn't seem quite right. I decided to dig up the bones of one of those for a thought that returned to me last night. I'm presenting to you a blog I wrote mostly on March 30, and then tweaked to fit my thoughts today, July 7 (oops).

Before I actually begin, I want to give you context as to where I am right now:

I spent some time yelling at God last night, if we're honest.
 I've been pretty frustrated recently with him for the ways it's felt like he's guided me into brick walls that I keep slamming into and hurting myself, and I've also been mad at myself for feeling entitled to a life above the hurt.
The theme my life keeps coming back to is that God's been telling me to wait. To be patient. I've prayed for guidance on things I felt I needed to act on...all I've gotten is the feeling and resources to wait. Wait for what, you're asking? I don't know, guys. I don't know. I can tell you I was on my face last night as I'm sure many of you have been, wanting to know what to do with one of the many things I have trouble surrendering control of in my life. I waited for an answer. I begged for an answer. All I got was that indescribable feeling of conviction. Patience. WHAT. NO. No more of that. I'm fresh out of that resource (your fault, God), and I thought you were making big moves in my life finally. That's what I deserve, right? After all I've given you?
Yikes. That sounds a lot worse written out than in my thoughts. But yeah, that's basically my thought process recently.

Okay, now that that's out of the way here are my constructive thoughts:

the easier-said-than-done waiting command

I remain confident of this:

    I will see the goodness of the Lord

    in the land of the living.

14 

Wait for the Lord;

    be strong and take heart

    and wait for the Lord.

-Psalm 27:13-14

Ever have a verse or theme get stuck in your head/life for a while, and you realize the reason later?

I'm having one of those right now, so I figured I'd write about it.

The Bible App verse of the day yesterday {UPDATE: this was the verse of the day for March 29th, haha} was Psalm 27:14, and an alarming number of my friends (if your friends don't see that you did it, does reading the Bible actually count?) made verse images for it. I finished my first Bible App plan in a long time a couple of days ago, and guess the real kicker verse the final devo was based off of? Psalm 27:13-14. I'm just coming out of a fairly significant season of attempted self-discipline and waiting in my life, and after really diving in I think there's so much to learn from this concept.

faith = trust...?

Let's go back to the beginning. Of life. And death. You're probably familiar with the Fall of Man (Genesis 3), the first act against God committed by humans, basically the entire reason life sucks sometimes. Thanks, Adam and Eve. Thanks guys.

 I recently gained a new perspective about our relationship with God, and if I'm oversimplifying this, please address all complaints to rjs16b@acu.edu (that's Riley's email address. Send me an email if you want his number. He takes complaints very seriously). 

I think that one of the most important attributes that went away with the Fall, and pretty much the reason for all our pain, was trust. Wow, Mason. Soooo profound. We need to trust God, good blog. Keep reading and I'll try to make it more interesting, I promise.

Have you ever noticed that the areas of life you feel weakest in seem to be the areas where you feel most attacked?

In Genesis 3, where all the crap that affected our entire lives on earth goes down, Satan starts his whole plan into the works simply by creating the opportunity for lack of complete trust.

rocks

This concept is so basic, but I forget the simplicity behind it almost every day. When complete trust isn't there, it creates a metaphorical crack, AKA an opportunity for Satan to put a metaphorical wedge in the metaphorical rock of our non-metaphorical faith. I mean, there's still an entire rock there when a small crack is in it, right? A small lack of trust doesn't mean a huge lack of faith. Big faith can still be there when a crack appears, but big faith can fall hard. Don't be fooled: a small crack can absolutely destroy a huge rock. {Side note here: doubt is an awesome thing that helps faith grow. Doubting with faith doesn't mean letting trust go to the wayside in this context. I'll cover that in another blog sometime, hopefully}

"You won't certainly die," the enemy says in Genesis 3 verse 4. "You won't certainly give into temptation," he says to you and me. There's a practical way out of every downfall, every addiction, and every misstep. Until things are so piled up that it feels like there's no way out, and you've done the unimaginable.
Maybe that snake is right. I didn't notice how legit this fruit looks...smells good, too. I'll take it from the tree and give it to Adam, he hasn't said anything...I'll eat it if you do, hubs. Oops. Down the hatch. 

Boom. Wait. Why are we naked? 

Back to the trust thing. In reading Genesis 3, do you notice that as soon as they lost trust with God, they lost trust with everything? The first thing they realize is that they're not clothed, and they no longer trust each other or whoever else was around with who they truly were.  So. Relatable. Trust was so important in the world when it was perfect. They acted without fear with their trust in each other, in God, and their surroundings. 

But we can't do that. Have you been hurt? I have. Sorry if this is too punk rock for you, but I have trusted earthly things to get me through life and been throughly disappointed. I still catch myself doing that, all the time. I've lost trust in my surroundings, and at times I feel callous to so many of the positive experiences and people in my life because I'm expecting to be let down. I think it's completely okay to not trust this world, it's just part of who we have to be sometimes.

jesus is the best vine don't @ me

Alright. Where does that leave us? We're in this waiting game and God's saying we need to be patient and wait on him. We're in enemy territory, we can't trust our surroundings. Waiting in this environment is like sitting and waiting to get hit with a stray bullet. 

Here's what we have  to do if we're going to make it through: we have to give God every piece of our lives. If you hold ANYthing back, you're not trusting him completely. Remember the rocks? We can't let a crack get in there. If one does, we gotta remove whatever Satan's using to chisel away at us, and Flex Seal that bad boy up. 

What does that look like? Uncomfortable analogy coming up: being naked. stripping down and letting God see what we're too ashamed to show the world. No fig leaves allowed.

Why would I say that? To get the point across, of course. Trust is a huge deal, and that's something many people struggle with, myself included. Here's the best part of this entire blog, though:

God delights in our deepest and most intimate corners of our lives, because we are a part of him. He's the Vine to our Branch.

(See John 15:4-6)

It's an incredible feeling, truly abiding in our Vine. He's where we belong, anyway. He created us to be naked (you thought I was done with that analogy, didn't ya), and he LOVES who we truly are. We're just a branch of him, anyway. Therefore we have zero reason to not trust him. We have every reason to be patient when he tells us to be patient, no matter the length of time or the confusion. Trust in him, friends. Trust in him, Mason. 

wrap-up

Don't get me wrong. It takes strength to wait, read the verse in Psalms again: Wait for the Lord. be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. You have to rally yourself.  Here are three ways to wait when God tells you to be patient about something. We all have something we want to jump the gun on. Identify that thing in your life. 

1. Wait with intention to stop waiting. Not going now means you're going to have to start at some point. Be prepared, and don't sleep on God's signs in your life. Patience for one thing doesn't mean ignoring everything else in your life.

2. Wait with trust. So basically what this entire blog was about. Renew your trust to be refreshed.

3. Wait with strength. Wait, but never stop moving. Patience doesn't mean being lazy. The enemy is going to try to distract you if you're doing the right thing. Keep your goal at the front of your mind. Eyes on the prize. 

Eyes on the prize. 

"I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus, when we meet him face-to-face, opens the books and allows us to see the good things from our lives with a greater clarity than when we first experienced them. Such speculation is not wild theology. It is near to the heart of the Bible. After all, Jesus said that the Father knows you so well--better than you know yourself, in fact."

 -Kevin Ott, Shadowlands and Songs of Light 

~m