wasting life on God

I am always in a state of thinking and considering things.  I consider a lot of things.  Sometimes I consider the animals, sometimes electrons, sometimes personal experiences, sometimes community experiences, sometimes technology, sometimes philosophies.  I am always in a state of considering things.  Entertainment has very little value for me.  I would literally rather do nothing with a measure of anxiety than watch television.  I have very little to do at this juncture in my life.  I attend a Sunday morning church service, I attend a Tuesday night beer and chips service.  I work 8 hours a day.  I am a man that has a heart for God yet I sense that something is missing.  There are several things missing but to simply state it, it feels like something is missing.

God is a great reality and force in my life.  There isn't a molecule in my body that doesn't want to be filled with the hope and glory of being God's.  There is a little room in Kansas City, Missouri where people worship God 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  I have been there many times.  There was one instance in particular on my way up to Minneapolis that I stopped in for 15 minutes grabbed a coffee and left.  I had an experience in that 15 minutes that I experienced a revelation of sorts.  I don't think I was seeking one.  I am pretty sure it was at a time in my life where I was resisting God's work in my life.  I saw these young people worshiping God from all over the nation and my heart broke.  I had to bite down on my back teeth just to avoid breaking into tears, a bit like I am doing now.  I will try to describe it.

I consider many things.  I really do.  There is something about little rooms that draw people from all over the nation that is attractive.  Things that are attractive attract things.  A beautiful woman may attract the attention of a capable lover, yet she will also attract the attention of incapable lovers because she is beautiful.  We are attracted to things that are attractive.  There is a great malaise in American youth and when we have nothing to do we seek to find meaning even if it is just for moments in time.  I know that some people who flock to places like this are seeking to find meaning, acceptance, to avoid problems at home, to avoid responsibility etc...  Even knowing this, this has never bothered me much, but some people who know about this prayer room will bring it up as an issue as an issue of its validity.

So I am in the back of the room trying to exist there in the present as best as I could knowing that I was heading to Minneapolis and had quite a drive ahead.  I was considering the ideas of these people being drawn for many various reasons to be there, but that I was thankful for what they were doing.  In a moment God broke my heart and the tears started welling up.  I sensed that God loved every single person that was in the room so much.  In spite of all the various reasons they were there He was honored and glorified.  I sensed that He was in no way offended for any of these "wrong" reasons that people chose to worship Him.  It was in that moment that I felt so humbled.  I saw that these people were walking in a great humility even if they were unaware of it.  These people had chosen to give their lives to God to be concerned with him for 8 hours a day on average.  Here I was heading up to meet friends and enjoy good food, buy some cabinets and come back home to live my life.  My heart was broken.  I realized that there was something missing.  I was not concerned with God.  Maybe I was entertained by Him but I was not concerned with Him.  I liked going to His events and hearing encouraging messages that were maybe very true.  I wasn't very concerned with Him.  These people were.  I am not putting their character's on a platform.  I am putting the reality of offering attention to God on a platform.  I sensed that anyone who was willing to waste their life on God would be honored for it.

So, sitting here in my little cafe as I listen to the worship from the prayer room I go right back to that moment.  I am not doing anything that seems important.  I will not say that important things are not happening but on a proactive level there doesn't seem much to be going on in my life.  I write a half lame blog that may have value at points, but I am not engaged.  I am for moments.  I want to waste my life on God and I am trying to determine how I can do it.  I have managed to make it 33 years without getting married.  I have very minimal responsibility.  I have considered at great length my place in life and what my role is.

When I was in high school I was sort of in a relationship.  I had some anxieties about the relationship and shared those with some confidants from my church who I trusted and respected.  When I expressed my anxieties of the relationship they told me that "maybe God was using me to be an example of sorts of what a good guy was but that maybe that was it".  I was so angry.  Please don't read anything theological into this.  I was aware of the idea that guys in the Old Testament were used as examples to our generation.  They were not able to see the fruit of their labors or the joy of the prize.   In my heart I said, "my life is not some joke, it isn't fair to use me as an example.  what about me?"  It was at that point that I decided that I would make the relationship official.  I wasn't going to be used as an example.  Please understand I am not saying that is what God was or was not doing.  I am saying that my heart responded the way it did.  In my foolishness and inexperience with being a "good example" or much of a man at all I made very bad mistakes.  I was ridden with anxiety, guilt, lack of direction, and all the human stuff we can use to paint our own psychological canvasses.  I hurt this person a great bit.  I hurt myself.  Looking back I see more of what was actually going on.  I have a better understanding of relationships.  I have a better respect for the way God respects the integrity of relating to others with confidence, integrity, and commitment.

I use that story really to point out that I said, "Don't use me as Your example!"  I avoided what I didn't want from God, yet 15 years later or so I only want to be used as an example.  I have experienced quite a bit of frustration, disappointment, betrayal, and all the stuff.  This stuff hurts.  It can make you very bitter.  I became bitter  and ignored God for several years and made terrible decisions during those years.  Being 33 years old and single with nothing really going on feeling that something is missing I ask, "What is it?"  I have been humbled enough that I desire to be an example.  Not so much to be an example of "success", but a perfect example of what it means to be a human who has been pursued by God.  I am a perfect example of God's ability to take a broken man (broken by self, by others, by expectations and realities)  to speak to that part of that man's heart where he breaks into tears thinking about honoring God and sharing in His glory.  God can take a broken heart full of disappointment much of which is internal and self inflicted with great help from others and fill it with a desire for love and hope against all worldly odds.  Whenever God speaks to us we have the opportunity to respond.  Sometimes I respond with, "here I am your servant." other times with, "hell no, leave me alone!"

I side tracked.  I really wanted to state two paragraphs ago that I want to be used by God.  My life is totally open (or at least that is what I'd like to believe) to be used for His purposes.  I want to waste my life on God.  I have desired things, ideas, relationships, existences and they all pale in comparison to God.  I realize that God can give us all the aforementioned ideas for His purposes but a desire for those things if they eclipse our willingness to obey creates an unstable thing.  It isn't like God is saying, "This particular situation is out of balance and I am going to level it until these cats realize whats up."  I think that the nature of things being out of balance will bring themselves to their own equilibrium.  When we input bad ingredients into a mix it will ruin the recipe.  We do this everyday all day long and eventually the poison creeps out and has its own effect.  God can rejoice over the marriage of two of His children but years down the road with much of the incessant adding of poisonous ingredients find that His children hate each other and want to be free of the gift that He gave them.  This is to say that the poison always comes out. It is unavoidable.  I keep getting side tracked.  The desire for God must be first and foremost.  We must fight for having Him at the center or our poisons that we bring to our relationships and dreams will take a fatal effect sooner than later.  God wants to rescue us from our own poisons.  When He puts us in relationships He is fully aware that the other will be affected by your poisons.  The effect of the poison on another, especially the one you love is grace.  God is saying, your lover is getting sick because of the poison that you have brought to this relationship.  I needed you to see the effect of it so that you would allow Me to take from you those poisons, patterns, behaviors and let Me replace them with ways that are more honorable.

I really was wanting to make another point but I have to assume it is God trying to communicate these ideas because it keeps coming back up.  We have to be aware that it doesn't matter that we have all the best ingredients available to make a wonderful cake to surprise the one we love...if we add poison to it, it will bring forth death.  We do this instinctually.  It is like there are things that we resort to out of our own personal natures that we may not even be aware of that is like poison in a glass bottle that is unlabeled that we have always added to our cake mixes.  We may have been given this ingredient as part of a family recipe yet we have never really known what it is or why we use it, but we always add a dash.  Mom always did, but only just a sprinkle.  When we bring our poisons into relationships, known or unknown, obvious or not they bring forth death.  We must ask God to come into our spice cabinets and ask Him to take anything that we shouldn't have. I think most of us really want to surprise our lovers, family, friends and we are always making cakes for them.  We are truly unaware of the poisons that we have put in the mix.  We may never realize it because we always add these things in small doses but it is making all of us sick and some of us are dying.  The Bride of Christ is a beautiful Bride.  She really does want God.  She really does want to be a gift and a surprise to her Lover.  God is aware of the desire that He has put in our hearts.  We just need to be willing to let Him come in and clear out the things that have been hurting us.  We may find that some of our favorite spices (personalities, entertainments, desires, life goals, etc) are the ones He takes.  It will hurt a great deal because they have been so important to us and the things that we have made with with them.  Let Him take them.  We are all going loose some of things that have been important to us.  What we all gain is relationship with our Father, our King, and better relationships with each other.

p.s.

the thing I was wanting to communicate is that I think it has been God's grace in my life that He has allowed me to be so disappointed so frequently.  it may be that part of His purpose in letting me hope greatly in certain things and the following disappointment of the loss of those things is that we now have a fairly strong individual who realizes that the Love of God is far superior.  I really want to be in love with a woman and the corresponding responsibilities that come with it, a very important thing in God's heart, yet I have to say that God can give or take whatever He wants.  I still want to be His!  I can be an example that knows what it means to loose.  I have lost at God's hand, I have lost at mine, I have lost at others.  I still love God.  More importantly God still loves me.  He loves all the people I know just as much as He loves me.  In my desire to not be God's "pawn" as an example I have been frustrated enough that I realize it is a great honor to be used by him.  In a sense I have been broken.  The wild has been tamed a bit.  In my brokenness I have become peaceable and willing to yield (to a degree...who am I kidding).  This is the message that God wants to share with you.  He wants to break you.  Let Him.