Krap

So I've been trying on this whole "listening to God" thing again recently, right? Well, it turns out to be a pretty potent thing: direction as to what I should do &/or how I should respond is now sometimes explicitly spelled out for my by God Most High—cool, but at the same time daunting and very scary. After my divinely ordained meeting with Person on Tuesday, the Lord has also told me to do (and not do) several other things. In one particular area that I was thinking about yesterday that has to do with direction in my life, the Lord told me to lay low for a while on / not pursue, because He has begun this new reshaping & reformulation of my life. Pretty much it came down to the fact that God wants me to focus completely on my relationship with Him at this moment in time, so that I will be prepared & properly equipped for the next stage in my life. Starting adventures in other territory(ies) is not what He wants of me right now, but He said that He would give me the signal as to when the appropriate time would be for me to go & chase those adventures. Cool.

Another thing He told me to do—or actually, not to do—involved a spur-of-the-moment thought that I had this afternoon. I thought it was a great idea & very worthwhile in acting upon, but as this whole "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness..." & the "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding" bits are becoming increasingly concrete in my life, I decided to consult the Lord before proceeding. He said not to do it. I complained. He didn't budge. I submitted & after a long while, I started to kind of understand the reasons as to why it may have been a better idea to not do what I was thinking as opposed to actually running out & doing it.

The bad thing, though, is that sometimes God tells me to do things that I don't want to do. My first experience with this was nary a half hour ago, as I was walking home. A young middle-aged woman was carrying a small (but apparently heavy) box home and her purse was falling off of her shoulder. Being right beside her on the sidewalk, she turned and asked if I could pull her purse back up onto her shoulder, which I did. She thanked me & said quietly that with the heavy box she was carrying home, it wasn't very easy for her to do it herself. I chuckled friendly-like, smiled & proceeded to go on my way. Then the Lord piped up. "Carry that box for her." I cringed, bit my lip and as silently as a silent prayer can be, said, "No." ACK!!!!!

What the heck did I just do?!!?!?!!! I outright refused a direct instruction from the Lord. Of course, He didn't hide that fact from me either: Immediately the Holy Spirit convicted me; immediately verses swelled in my noggin about "whatever you do for the least of these..." immediately, my head was swirling with the prayers I had just prayed that morning—and the many days before—about asking the Lord to help me be a faithful steward with the gifts He has given me & about asking Him to help us as the Church to make every opportunity to let His light shine through us. Did that stop me from continuing to walk onwards? Nope. I cowered in my steps, as I walked away & begged for forgiveness. I felt horrible. I felt hypocritical. I felt like I wanted to continue walking away from that woman as fast as I could. Shoot. Crap. Crap crap crap. The Voice of the Lord, the Holy Spirit within me, and even my own Spirit all stood against my overt actions & all the while I was walking ahead of the woman, it felt like every fibre in my body was screaming to turn around—every fibre except for my "I'm afraid of this stranger" fibres. Three blocks later, as I was holding my head down in shame, I turned around to see if the woman was still walking. It being foggy out, all I could see was this silhouetted figure two block back walking towards me. Crap. What a freaking idiot I am!!! But did that make me walk back & helpl her? Nope. I had now convinced myself that, being alone, I was potentially in danger by this strange, helpless woman. not only that, but actually helping her may not have been on my route home & I couldn't have that! I mean, far be it from me to sacrifice a wee bit of my time for the advancement of the Lord's Kingdom, right? I am a loser.

Two blocks later, I couldn't stand it anymore. The Lord was telling me to turn around, so I struck a deal with Him: "Fine. I'll turn around & walk a block back in the direction I came, and if I see her, I'll help her. I'm sorry, Lord for being such a defiant idiot. Forgive me, but please let this be only a good learning lesson of how stupid I am... please!" So, I turned around & loosely walked back towards where I had come. I didn't see her. I thanked the Lord, but sheepishly as a disobedient child thanks a parent for not punishing them with the deserved severity. Crap crap crap. I am du-u-u-u-mb... Thank the Lord for His mercy & His boundless grace.

I learned a very valuable lesson today. Sometimes God calls me (probably us) to do things that we really don't want to do, and if we don't do them, it isn't just "Oh well," it's direct defiance against God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. I promised Him that I would never again pull a Jonah; now I just need to pray for strength to keep my promise...

Feeling very humbled,
The Lucid Elusion.



A little factlet for today:
•­The giving of the Self to others is key to successful community. In doing so, the Self grows & extends beyond the single human being and now embraces other humans as fundamental components of the very Self that was initially poured out.
•(Tied in with the above, but having broader implications...) Who you are is what you define your Self to be.

A question to ponder...

Here's the primer:
Alister MacIntyre states that there is no reason without a context. Reasoning about the Self is never neutral. Reason itself is a product of history & society. There, therefore, is nothing that isn't conditioned historically. There is neither Persons nor Reason outside of tradition & history. Rationality is not caused by tradition, rather it finds its origins within tradition and the Self is how one defines one's place in history. This definition of one's place in history is formulated out of the multiply available traditions, and it is in this conflict of traditions that the Self is defined. Since current society is amnesiac of its traditions, we objectify history. It is therefore difficult to escape conflict since we are no longer able to appeal to strong traditions. Inner conflict must perforce be resolved by the compartmentalisation of our ideas & our attitudes. We split our Selves into different forms to deal with this because traditions do not provide the higher values necessary to resolve these conflicts. Without this heirarchy of values, there cannot be conflict—instead, there is dissociation. Compartmentalisation of the Self precludes the notion of integrity or unity: there can be no unified Self if the Self is compartmentalised or split due to the lack of higher-order traditional values. Since there is no Self prior to tradition(s), then all traditions will necessarily split the Self. The inherent inability to construct a unified narrative used to define the Self results in our inability to unify the Self. This causes multiple splits—both in society & in the Self—which creates a culture of narcissism.


That being said:
Is the Biblical account of narrative in opposition to MacIntyre's concept of an irresolvable, unified narrative?

Hory Cwap!!

Okay, get this. I've taken up my old habit of meeting alone with God again. Whereas I used to make an hour for him every evening (waaaay back in Grade 9), in this recent version I only have dedicated Monday nights to be my “dates with God.” In this time, I spend half an hour reading my Bible, 15 minutes talking to God & 15 minutes listening to Him. This particular date—last night to be precise—I was feeling a wee bit frustrated / at a loss / unsure with who I am or where I am with the Lord. Now—partially because of the copious levels of caffeine injected into my bloodstream by the 3+ℓ of Diet Pepsi I consumed earlier on in the day, and partially because of my brother loudly watching late-night television—I was having difficulty going to sleep, so I do what I usually do when I am struck with insomnia: I pray.

During the course of my praying, the topic turns to me & hearing the voice of God. It has been something that I have previously experienced—yes, that means I have had two-way conversations with the Lord—but recently (say, the past 3 or 4 years), I have been shutting Him out of my mind because I was unsure / afraid that the voice I was hearing actually was the voice of God. This seems rather prudent—wouldn't want to start acting like a whack who goes around doing things because he claims that voices in his head told him to... I'd be thrown on antipsychotics & placed in a psych. ward to assess possible schizophrenia. So, last night as I was praying, I asked God about his Voice & whether I should listen to it. As the prayer continued, I asked Him about a certain situation in my life & what to do about it. I listened. He told me to talk to a specific individual. I laughed, “Are you serious?!”

Who knows? Maybe He was… So, being the nerdy little skeptic that I am, I decided in my mind that I would do nothing to make the interaction happen—more than that—I put the onus completely on God’s shoulders. I said to Him, “Fine then. If this is really you, Lord, then—man, God, I really hate to do this cuz I really don't want to put you to the test, but there really isn't any other way for me to know for sure, so here it goes: If this is really you, then make this person come & meet me at such & such a place on campus between noon & 12:30 tomorrow.” I prided myself on being crafty, since I had only seen this person on campus once this whole term, and that only in passing on a completely different day of the week. What would the chances be of this person actually showing up at a place I’ve only ever seen them 4 times before in my life on a day I’ve never seen them there within a 30-minute window? If it was gonna happen, God had to pull strings. As soon as I had made this request of the Lord, I shut His voice out of my hearing—but not before I grasped a teensy, weensy little “Fine,” that squeaked through the lines of open communication. At the time, I dismissed this “fine” as a wishful thought of my own desire to see God concretely work in my life. I continued praying for a while after this, talking to God about the same subject and others until I sometime fell asleep.

Morning comes & I carry out my usual routine, which has me belched from my apartment building into the wilds of the 6:30 am Edmonton downtown streets. Needless to say, it’s pretty quiet & pretty dark. So, I begin my usual jaunt towards the LRT station, singing praises to God & praying to Him. As my trek southward progresses, my prayers return to what the Lord had said to me the night before. I let Him have it a little easier, for I thought that I was being too demanding on the Lord—I mean, who am I, His creation, telling Him how I want it, right? Because of this thought, I made a new deal: If the person whom he told me to talk to ran into me at all during the day, then I’d make the effort to talk with them. I started the whole “listening to the Voice of God” deal again, and this time he said, “I will show you myself today,” to which I responded, “But Lord, how in the world do I even know that this is your voice I am hearing right now? I mean, it could just be my own wishful thinking! I know in 1 John, you tell us to test the spirits, but if this is just me, the voice would still pass the test since I do believe that You came in the flesh as the redeeming sacrifice for all. I don’t know what the heck to do!”

I love God. This is what he said to me in response: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord you God will be with you wherever you go.” He won. “Okay. Do your thing, Lord,” I said.

I get to school. I go & meet in prayer with a handful of other Christians on campus. We talk to the Lord & we worship in song. I don’t see the person at all before classes start. Class one begins & continues for the next three hours. My mind begins to rationalise the earlier experiences I had and I start to think that maybe it was all just fluff. Class finishes, and I go to the appointed place—where I typically go after this class for my 30 minute break between classes. No person there. “Okay, whatev,” I say to myself. I check my e-mail & return. Still no one. It is now 10 minutes after noon, so I sit down at a table & unpack some of my schoolwork to pass the time. No sooner had I unpacked my notes than this person the Lord told me to speak with appeared in the doorway and walked over to me. What the heck?! This isn’t supposed to happen! Not only that, but the person even brought up a topic of discussion that I had been meaning to talk with them about, but unfortunately time was running out quite fast & I was not able to complete (nor really even begin) my talk with them. As I packed up my stuff to head off to my next class, I let them know that God had told me the night before that I would meet up with them at that place & that He wanted me to talk with them. Person seemed relatively unfazed, which to me seemed a bit weird: the dude standing before them is claiming that the Creator of Heaven and Earth told him beforehand of this chance meeting & that He wanted them to talk, and Person nary bats an eyelash?! Wow. Odd. I was actually expecting at least the slightest reaction. I mean, I found it wholly absurd & completely foreign to my experience, but that may just be me. Then again, maybe I missed the reaction, or perhaps Person missed what I had said.

Anyways, the moral of the story is that I think I need to be listening closer to the Voice of God. I still have my reservations, however. I mean, one example isn’t enough to dispel all of my uncertainties, but it sure bolsters a pile of support for me to actually pursue it. The gift of prophecy is a weird thing. I should listen to God more & trust Him when He speaks. The small, effortless things are easy to do, but when He tells me to actually go out & do something, maybe I should actually do it. My relationship with God is weird, to say the least. But I love Him for it—however He decides to interact with me. Oh, and just in case you missed it earlier: Holy crap!!! God actually spoke tangible words to me & told me something that actually happened when He said it would. Not only that, but He even responded in my most difficult of requirements when He didn’t even need to!! Holy crap! Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!

A little factlet for my readers today, which is by no means really connected to the above:

I have discovered that when someone says that they are too busy to do x, it is really just a polite euphemism (yes, my English geek friends, I know it is redundant☺) for saying that x isn’t important enough for them. If it was, they would be sure to make time to ensure that x occurred.

Peace out.

Driftwood & Piledrivers

Lord Jesus, where am I? Help me to give you praise in everything that I do. Speak to me, work through me, minister to my broken heart. I need you—more than anything else, I need you. Come to me, my Lord & give me life.

Picture with me, if you will, an expanse of windless ocean. There are no clouds in the sky; there are no waves on the surface of the water. The only thing around—besides the warm, noonday sun—is a piece of driftwood, minding its own business as it wanders through the endless expanse of liquid hydrogen hydroxide. Now, imagine as though you are lying in the water right next to that piece of driftwood, having not a care in the world that could shatter the relaxed bliss of that moment. As you smile, lying on the surface of the water, you close your eyes & daydream for a while—maybe you're even the type of person to take a short snooze. Seconds mature into minutes, and the minutes pile up like the sand on the shore. After all sense of time has been successfully removed from your consciousness, you casually open your eyes. That piece of driftwood which was right beside you is no longer around. In fact, the two of you have meandered far enough apart that you can barely make out its shape far off on the horizon. "How in the world did that happen?" you muse to yourself as you lie back again and rest on the surface of the seas.

It truly is an amazing phenomenon, the action of drifting. You don't have to do anything at all, for just by the very nature of a fluid, you will ultimately end up moving. I don't know what to say. I think I was given a rude awakening yesterday evening, when I realised that I myself am very much like that piece of driftwood. The duration of time, however, has been much longer than a few minutes, and it is not you that I have drifted from in this my most recent realisation. I got smacked across the head last night & realised that my relationship with God has become so long-distance that I can barely see Him in my life anymore. What caused this realisation, I'm not all too sure: it just was, and that's as best as I can explain it. Needless to say, I found this realisation very, very unsettling.

If I actually asked myself the hard questions, how would I respond? Honestly? If I were to ask of myself, "What impact does your relationship with God have in and on your life?" or "Do you love God?" or "Do you love others?" or "What is the most important thing to you?" or "Where are you at with God?" I know that I would come up very short. And it makes me want to weep.

Today and yesterday, I have been questioning myself as to whether I have been living a lie for the past several years. Has Christ truly been central in my life? After serious thought about it, I would have to conclude that He hasn't. What does God mean to me? I know how I should answer. Heck, I even know how I would answer, but if I actually sat down & truly considered the question, how would I answer? Is God my security blanket? No. Has he become that to me in my drifting? Maybe. Is God living and active & central in my life? Living, maybe; active, maybe; central, doubtful. Has he been any of these in my life before? Hell yes. Do I know who my God is? Definitely. Is my heart his? That's questionable & uncertain. Do I want it to be? Consciously & verbally, yes I do, but in my daily living...?

To be wholly honest, I love my God more than words can express. I desire him more than wealth, fame, power, comfort & even others. He is a living, compassionate, love-filled, super-awesome everything. He is the one thing that I could not continue living without. God makes my day; He comforts me in my deepest, darkest moments & he celebrates with me in my victories. He is with me when I don't feel Him; He is with me when I do. To try to define who I am while leaving God out of the picture would be like trying to define a word while leaving out the vowels & consonants. And this, I hope, will help you appreciate better the crisis that I currently am dealing with. How would you react if one day you woke up and the one thing in your life that you absolutely love without limit, that you define your life by, that you live for—that most dearest thing—what if you woke up one day only to notice that it was almost completely out of sight because you were taking it for granted or because your were focusing on something else for a while instead.

What is love? I know there is a definition for it in I Cor. 13, but what is it really? I say I love, but do I really? When the mass-market media-frenzy tragedy of the year hit a few weeks ago, many people around me were shocked & dismayed. I? Numbed & unmoved. As hundreds of thousands of people experienced a life-shattering event, I was saying in my head "whoop-de-doo!" and to be honest, my attitude still hasn't changed that much (if at all). A cutting edge theory of emotions states that love is a rational construct wherein an object is recognised as being central to the advancement of one's personal strivings for eudaimonia (good spiritedness) that is not fully under one’s control (Cf. Nussbaum, 2001). I think that that is a good definition—no, it is an excellent definition. Thinking about love this way, it is no surprise that the tsunami effects have had little impact on me: those effected by this disaster simply have not preconsciously been recognised as central objects of my personal strivings. I don't love them because they mean nothing to me. Is this bad? Some would call me a monster, I think. I would just say that my emotive worldview has been constructed in such a manner as to localise my extension of love, and that the formation of these constructs are not done consciously, but pre- and sub-consciously, hence how we can grow to acquire new emotions for things & how others can fade away. Okay, forgive my large, theoretical bunny-trail. I will get back to the core of my content & try to wrap up shortly ;). But if you want to read more about this theory of emotions, I suggest you pick up a copy of Martha Nussbaum's Upheavals of Thought. Excellent read.

Alright. Here's the gig, in a more succinct fashion: My life has been plagued with distractors for the past several (5 or 6) years, and I hadn't really realised how much of an effect this has had on my relationship with God. Much of the space created by this inattentional drift has been caused by my attention on personal preservation—"the fear of man." A huge portion of my life has been characterised by rejection, attack and dismissal of me as a person or of that which I say/stand by. Times that I have tried to overcome this inhibition to community in the past have been met by just more of the same. This has caused scarring, hardening of my heart & vehemenent reluctance to be open & "real" with people, especially when they are unwilling to take that step first themselves. Now, me worrying & fretting about how people will react/respond to me has (duh) taken my attention off Christ (wow, this sounds a whole lot like my original post back in July...). Placing the focus back on Christ in my life has been good, but I never really surveyed the extent to which I had wandered, and now looking at the expanse between where I was with Christ & where I exist now, things seem rather daunting & very, very disparaging. So? What to do? There is a nasty voice in my head—one that I recognise—that is telling me that the distance that I have "fallen" from is too great to surmount & that I might as well give up. This voice of our beloved friend Satan has been haunting me for, ohh... The past 24 hours or so, and the a-hole is very very convincing. But screw that junk! Like I said before, God & my relationship with Him is too dear to me than words can describe. I cannot give up on my Lord. I love Him too too much to walk away, even though I have been drifting away for soooooooo long. Instead, there is only one thing that can & must be done: get back to the grindstone, even though the journey is difficult & even though it seems impossible & unrewarding. In the end, the reward is intimacy with Jesus. Nothing, nothing is better than that. I want Him, I need Him, I long for Him, and the only way to get to Him is to go to Him. I'm off.