if you could talk to jesus about one thing...

what would it be?

i like kamp krusty's conclusion:

Am I a fraud?

Or are you pleased with me? If you are, can I hear you say it?

yeah. i think i would want to say the same. would you say talk to him about?

on wrestling and silence

"I realized that I had come to a point of desperation and that I can honestly say my greatest desire in life is to know that God is with me. I set my faith toward this great goal.

The truth of the matter is that I'd rather be unhappy and know that God is with me, than be happy, comfortable, and unsure of God's presence.

I remember times gone by of incredible fulfillment and others of great unhappiness, but the single thread that holds them together is that I knew that God was with me at the heart of it all. He was caught up in my decision-making on a daily basis and I felt truly alive. Right now by contrast I am technically happy but there is this underlying sense of dullness. I just spent a while in the midsts of dawn on the Trundle [a local hill] looking for God, crying, trying to listen, being honest in a way that has to whisper.

Later Samie asked me what God had said to me, and I replied, "nothing." God said nothing, and that's okay, because I'm starting to wrestle for His presence again, and I'm prepared to wait. I feel like God is waiting to see if I am waiting. If he just flooded in with answers and guidance right now, I would not have changed, I would not have learned to wait and trust without the answers, and without a road map for the future. So I'm kind of glad that God was silent, because I actually want to wait, I want to prove my metal to God; I don't necessarily want ease and instant anything anymore.

I want to be different before I do anything different. So I'm waiting for God, and God is waiting for me to see if I am really waiting for Him, and not just wanting things from Him. And as God and I eyeball each other in this way, I feel good. I feel alive and engaged with what matters, and I'm going to win this waiting game with God." 29, Red Moon Rising by Pete Grieg

i've been turning this quote over in my head frequently the past couple of weeks. there's a honesty here that i really resonate with, and i also really like the way silence is portrayed as healthy dynamic.

i do sense that i'm entering a season of transition and change. there are some obvious factors here :), but i genuinely feel that something is new.

i'm starting to wrestle for His presence again.

its been awhile that i've been able to do that wholeheartedly. m bickle says that it takes God to love God...its definitely a been a process of getting past all the junk of western evangelicalism. its a miracle that i'm here again. and this time, i do feel like its not for the purpose of tapping into the cosmic vending machine but for just for relationship.

its not easy. i feel like i'm exercising muscles that have atrophied and have been out of use for a long time. i'm also developing some new muscles -- like wrestling for His presence as an end...and not as a means to what He has to say or what He has for me to do.

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there are times and seasons when God is silent, and we need to learn how to trust in the midst of silence. but there are other times there is silence because our souls is noisy.

can you hear your friend talking when there is a stereo blaring, video games switched on, computer turned on, multiple people talking? no, we have to turn off the inputs one by one...and then we realize that something is being said.

and what if its in a language that you're familiar with, not fully fluent. you have to listen slowly, re-hear, have the speaker repeat what they've said, and translate what has been said in your head...

wouldn't we be deliberate to hear and understand this voice if we knew that things that were said would set us free, would give us life, would bring us into relationship? don't we do that very thing to understand and hear the voice of our loved ones?

"meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. selah." psalm 4:4b