Struggle Is Funny

Thanks StrengthFinder 2.0, for helping me come to understand my Restorative, Harmonious and Intellectual qualities.
Thanks for not pointing out my inherent weaknesses and tendencies toward idol worship, crippling comparison of myself to others and love of my job before my love of God.
Man. 

Sometimes, you have to face your Ugly.
But sometimes you can spend days, weeks, even months occupying yourself with busyness or believing your own lies to keep yourself from having to face your Ugly. Yesterday, I feel like God forced me to. Thank God. I'm the type of person who will resort to every last form of relief before I resort to taking refuge in the Lord. I don't know why this is, but it's always been that way. I guess that's what you call human nature? Maybe. Anyway, yesterday, after what seemed like I was being "caught like a bear by the feet with his hands in the hive who complains of the sting" (I was doing something that was not wise, all the while whining to God about how unhappy I was), I was hit with how good I am at ignoring bad and uncomfortable things, and covering them up with forms of escapism. I mean, I'm really good at ignoring things. And escaping. It's kind of scary. I never thought about it before, but I see it all areas of my life. Socially, spiritually...even with the way I eat. So yesterday I actually sat down, very unwillingly, whining and frowning at having to face my own Ugly, and I searched my heart and mind for discomforts and anxieties and concerns, and ended up pinpointing about 6 different things that were what I considered to be significant problems that I had subconsciously been ignoring. 6. That's a lot! If you're defining them as problems that would cause stress and distraction in life. I know everyone has problems at any given point, but for some reason I have the concept in my head that being problem free = being holy, therefore I've been ignoring my problems.
And not without cost.
Because with it, I've developed about 6 or so habits, or compulsions, that are outlets for me do deal with this stuff I'm not actively dealing with. Isn't that funny? Seriously. I think it's kind of amazing. If we don't acknowledge and work through our struggles, they'll surface anyway without our consent. There's no way to avoid struggle or pain.  Because in one way or another--you'll end up having to deal with them. And if you don't deal with them right away or in good time, they'll will come back up with a few pals you'll have to deal with them, too. And those pals bring pals, and their pals bring pals...and it ends up being a party.
So acknowledge it and nip it early. And most importantly: love your struggle and your pain. Because Our God is a god of struggle (see: the story of Jacob). He obviously loves both of them and sees their value or he wouldn't have wired our minds and bodies to force us to face them.
So, as it is with everything:
Praise God.

Disarmed.

God, God, God.

That's all the words I can seem to muster lately when I pray or worship or stand before God.
Our God is huge. And all encompassing. Completely unpredictable. and 100% NOT formulaic.
I'm frustrated lately because I'm a very formulaic and step-by-step person. Normally, you do such and such, to get such and such. It's logic. It's the law of Causation.
But God does not work this way. And I think He ups his mysteriousness and unpredictability and evasiveness even more so to those who have problems with formulaic religious thinking in order to show them that He is not this way. His arm is the one thing in the life of an analyzer/controller, that they cannot through will, force or manipulation of any kind, twist. And to us analyzers/controllers, that's disarming, frustrating, infuriating and exposing of our true nature.  It's something ugly we don't like to see. We can petition, we can ask, we can plead, but nothing we do with intentions of boxing Him in will ever work.
So, given that, I'm finding that during prayer, I can repent, I can praise, I can ask, I can do anything, but none of that will guarantee He will speak to me.
During worship, I can pray for humility, I can pray against pride, I can sing through gritted teeth, but none of that will guarantee I will meet with God and give Him the praise He deserves.
In my day-to-day, I can begin with meditating on His word, appreciating His creation, listening intently to my neighbor, preferring others above myself, but none of that will guarantee that at the end of the day, I glorified God.
I don't get God. If God was religious, this whole thing would be so easy. All of the above would be completely successful. But it's not. They're all good things, repentance, praying against pride, preferring my neighbor, meditating on his word...they're all beautiful and gifts from God. But if we cling to these things as ways to manipulate and 'get to' The Father, then we lose the beauty and the wonder of the fact that He is like wind through the trees: there for a few seconds then gone. Moving and invading the surroundings, then off to affect something else. Tangible on your skin for a split second, then He disappears. You try to catch him, but instead He flows right through your fingers. Who is this God?
I'd like to say that lately I'm in wonder of the evasiveness of God. But I'll be honest and say that I'm frustrated. God makes no sense. Ritually, I'm holy. Spiritually, I don't feel so holy. But yet, He loves and He gives life to me, slowly and subtly, despite the fact I'm frustrated and irritated with the most beautiful part of His being! If that's not anti-formulaic and upside-down, I don't know what is.

God, God, God!

God Whispers Things To Me In My Arrogance

I wrote this while having a mild panic attack in a suburban church this morning. Often, when I attend church, I sit there, look around the room and judge everyone in it. Harshly. Then get angry with Christianity for having such a shitty Church. What's funny, though, is that all of my judging can truly only reveal one thing--that I am really judging myself. I hate my judgmental mind, my disobedience to God and my preoccupation with myself, so I project it upon others. Anyway, my inner battle leads to anxiety and this is my normal church routine, the few times I actually attend. So this is what God spoke to me today.

"I should vow to journal every time i visit a church. To document the insurmountable anxiety. Frick. I did that in China. I journalled a few pages while I was at a church there. I'm glad I did because I discovered something. I was at an underground missionary church for foreign missionaries--and i still felt like that church was shit, everyone was fake and I wanted to run out of the room and go talk to an atheist stranger. Being here in this suburban, plastic church makes me long for an intelligent, grass roots, no-show service like [insert hipster KC church]. I think to myself that I could never remain somewhere like this Lees Summit church because everyone follows God blindly, defining him as a feel good, smiley, material, sentimental and disconnected "hope", versus a raw, fierce, relational and loving God. I wonder, while watching the worship leader sing and jump around like a member of Relient K (after a video with a robot voice and techno effects counted down to the start of worship. In seriousness.) if we even serve the same God. Do we? Who is delusional here? Me and my definition of God, or this guy and his definition? Or do we both serve the Almighty, it's just that He is abounding in love and patience with how each of us pursue him? If that's true, frick, we serve an incredible God. But also, if that's true that brings up the idea that God is relative in one way or another and that's a whole different topic. Anyway. I don't know. Troy Sherman's teaching comes to mind. The time he was telling us that you don't not go to church because you don't like it. You go to church to be the change that needs to happen. That's beautiful and true. It's trendy now to be mad at church, isn't it? To point the finger and find everything that's wrong so the church has nothing left to do but grovel and ask for forgiveness. I don't know, I think it might be us, the blamers, who need to get our knees and ask the church for forgiveness for not standing on our own two feet with the authority Christ gives us to forgive and rebuild things. Instead of being passive, blaming, whiny cowards. I guess the bottom line is that it could be a plastic suburban church or a hipster, trendy activist church...it doesn't matter what it is, I will find something to hate, judge, accuse or blame about it. It's time to grow up and see the beauty in it all. No one is beyond redemption. Even Christians."

So now, lets move on to bigger and better things.