For Those Who Join Me In Wanting More

I really have no idea what I'm going to write. I'm mainly writing out of a feeling that it's needed and important to sort through things, but I have no idea what yet. I am hoping the things will come to mind and out in words on their own. THe song playing right now keeps repeating "everything is going to be all right." It's funny, most times I don't believe that. Deep down, I feel like I'm failing. Maybe I am.

I started reading a book a couple nights ago. It's called To Own a Dragon by Don Miller. It about his journey through figuring out what it means not to have a father around and how that made things harder for him. I grew up and still have my father around. Well, he's around, but hasn't really been there for me, emotionally. I can relate a lot with Don in his struggles, in the lies he's had to confront and deal with due to not having a dad around. One of his chapters addressed how parents should instill in their children a confidence and sense of urgent importance for their existence in the world.

I had a professor say the only reason we have kids (or at least the big reason) is to feed our egos, to continue the pride of our lineage, to remain alive vicariously through our children. He was a bit messed up.

I never felt like my existence was all that important, at least I never picked up the notion that was true from my father or mother. I knew they loved me. I also knew I annoyed them a lot, being a kid, tormenting my sister. I know I confused them, or intimidated them, being a distant, confused, scared teenager. I played it off as anger or annoyance at them, but it was fear.

I never felt the world was worse off without me, but I never felt lived through vicarously through my father, to ego boost him. He isn't that kind of man, and I'm glad. But I'm not in a way because at least in that way I would have felt like I had a purpose, that I was in some way important to my dad. I didn't get the message to much. I think I have been taught to mainly assume I'm important, that even though it is never said, it is true. It's not good enough, nor do I think it should be.

So I guess much of what I am thinking through currently is how my father-son relationship has shaped the way I view the world, how there are false perceptions I live by that make it more difficult, that there is a different perspective, a true reality to live and think by. Am I failing? I think I am because I have seen the truth and choose to live under the lies. I don't really no why I choose the lies; they're not as fun to believe as the truth that I am irreplaceable and world-shaking.

So I am a failure! If my mom reads this, she'll probably get all upset and tell me not to think like that. But my mom do not think alike. I will admit, a couple months ago I would have agreed, there's something wrong with me for thinking that way. But now, I am in a place where God is a little bigger than I once thought. I little more capable than I thought, a little more loving.

I was watching TV with my mom and we turned to the Dateline special "To Catch a Predator." She asked me what's wrong with some people, and I shared my thought that it was all a result of the Fall of Man. I do not do well talking about spiritual matters with my family, so I didn't elaborate any more than to say they were no worse people than ourselves. She made a comment that she didn't rape little children, and I knew I got in over my head.

What I wanted to say but didn't was that I am a sinner just like the pedophiles on that show. No I don't prey on the weak, but I sin in other ways, in the way I sit around most of the day doing nothing of importance or merit, or in the way I lust over the female image. In God's sight, I still choose things outside His will to satisfy my heart's desire that destroy my soul, just like the pedophiles destroy their soul by feeding a carnal desire. I won't get into the argument that certain sins are worse than others, for a good argument can be made to support that claim, especailly when others are hurt or destroyed in the wake of the destructive act. But my point is that sin is sin, and all of it, any of it drives us away from the only one who is good and right for us.

Am I upset that I am failing this part of my life? Not really. I would have been if God hadn't taught me some stuff. Well, it's not really a new thought, just a better understanding of it. It's the Gospel that gets me through the disappointment of failure. The Gospel of Jesus. I know more clearly than ever before that my sins, my failures have no hold over my worth. Because Jesus chose to die on a cross, I have a freedom to fail and be forgiven and redeemed. Yeah, I could choose to run away from God and avoid Him, and I would indeed be in a sad state, a state many are in and think is the only way to be, so separated from knowing the joy that comes from knowing God that they know no other way to be. I have lived that way, have tasted the sweetness of God's way and yet still chose darkness, and it was bad, and depressing and harmful. But God shepherded me away from that and taught me the better way, the way of grace. The Gospel of Jesus is this: that the scared, directionless, lazy young man who wastes his days in front of a TV can at any moment look to God and be redeemed and empowered to make more out of his life, to live like the prince that he is through the inheritance given him by his Kingly Father in Heaven. Even more, when the prince runs away despite knowing his riches, and lives with dogs and dines with pigs, the Father in Heaven still finds a love with no end to welcome him home and restore his glory.

There is tremendous value in our depravity, for it reveals the love of God for all of us when He recreates us and makes us new. And it all comes down to his love. It is everthing. Everything. If I didn't know the Love of God, I would die, I would want to die. This life is too painful without hoping for something more. The more is available and attainable in God.