Rebellion

Fall quarter was tough for me.  I got through school with a decent GPA, stayed as involved with church as I could, and even got in touch with a couple old friends.  That all looks great, but it had a painful undertone.

Because this last summer I lost a friend.  He was one of the kindest people I've ever met, and he was taken home very young.  I know that if he had a chance to say good-bye he would have told us he'd miss us, but he also would have told us not to worry about him.  He wanted everyone around him to be happy; that's just who he was.

But nevertheless, I felt an innocent optimism sink away from me.  It was subtle enough that I didn't really see it go, but after a while I realized I had changed.  Well, my attitude had changed, and I spent the last few months back and forth between lack of motivation and guilt over my own laziness.  In all this I silently commended myself for keeping things together.

So it came as a bit of a shock when, over winter break, I kept feeling God telling me to turn from my rebellion.  I can't explain this fully...but suffice to say that the topic kept coming up somehow in my thoughts or in reading, and every time it got under my skin like a bad itch.

Which pissed me off.  Getting to know the real world has been a head trip; I've been in the ER multiple times since moving up to Seattle; dealt with unemployment and poverty; and after losing a friend and getting to school by the skin of my teeth, I exhaust all of my energy to finish well and all God has to say is that I'm rebelling?!?

Whatever.

But it still wouldn't go away.

No matter how many times I tried to discount it.  No matter what justifications I had.  The itch wouldn't go away and nothing served as a good enough distraction.

So yesterday in between classes I finally broke down and read my Bible, for the first time in eons.  I'd had Romans 7 on my mind for some reason, so I went there.  This chapter includes a bit where Paul describes the war that is the human condition.  A verse that states this well:

"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me." (v. 21)

I would highly recommend reading through the chapter...no matter how many times I read it, it will always encourage me and help me to be less harsh on myself.  What I realized yesterday is that my life has been marked with struggle, but not because God is picking on me or because I have a special disadvantage.  It's been marked with struggle because I've spent so much time trying to find what's right and good, attempting (and most often failing) to discipline myself to listen more, offer more care to others, and in every way be a better man than I feel like I am.

And that's when it hit me.  This fall I gave up.  Life got hard, I lost a friend, I got confused, and I stopped caring about myself.  I felt like the effort wasn't worth it anymore, so I stopped trying; stopped fighting for a better world and a better me.

What God opened my eyes to see was that I was caught in rebellion---not malicious, not ill-meaning.  I still cared about others, still tried to find reasons to smile every day, still looked for truth and peace in my studies and daily work.  But God has brought me so far and taught me so much in this life...I'm not joking or exaggerating when I say that He literally taught me how to love other people.  It took a lot of prayers, tears, and heartbreak to turn me into a person that could start to love.  God has stayed beside me all the way.

My big rebellion was that after all this, I still let the world convince me to give up hope.

Please let me say that again.

I let the world convince me to give up hope.

And this is exactly what God doesn't want for anyone.  I know our world is messed up.  God doesn't judge anyone for losing hope...far from it.  But I think it breaks his heart even more than ours to see how our world is in such dire need of it.

I decided then and there that I had to keep fighting.  Love, peace, hope, forgiveness, kindness...all of these need to be fought for; sought after with a great effort.

Since yesterday things have been much better.  I know it's early in the quarter to call anything, but I know that this is the right track to be on...not marked by doing all the right things or by avoiding certain wrong things...no, the Gospel is much bigger than that.  God has called me---He has called all of us---to hope.

I pray that we will allow ourselves to hope again, to feel again, every day.  Thanks to God who gives us these things, and may we bear with one another in love for every step of this life we take together.

Because there is always beauty, always good waiting to be found amidst the garbage.

There is always hope.