Enjoying God

-
I'm sure that most of you know this about me all ready, but I'm a fairly cynical person. I like to call it being honest and authentic, but as I really reflect on it, it's mostly the unwillingness to allow myself to be excited about anything because of a nervousness that I'll somehow be let down. The students at my church always say that Aaron will hype everything, but Jeff will tell you if it's really going to be any good. I'm mostly pretty happy about who I am, but a small part of me often wishes I could be as positive and as excited about things as Aaron is.

I'm realizing though that in my Christian life this cynicism has often caused me to miss out on some amazing things. My natural response when I'm confronted with an emotional experience is to assume that it's manufactured and that somehow I'm being manipulated and so I immediately turn my back on it because I don't want to be forced anywhere.

There have been times in my life where I have been unable to feel or sense the presence of God, not because he's not there, but because I'm too busy, too sad, too stubborn, or too frustrated for me to hear him. The last few weeks have not been that way. I have been having one of those "mountaintop" experiences that Christians talk about, and this time instead of turning my back on it I've been enjoying it.

I don't mean to say that I'm getting everything right with my faith, or that I'm even close. But I've been experiencing the overwhelming presence and love of God in a way that I've never allowed myself. I've always tried to keep myself grounded in my faith and to not be prideful of anything because, in all honesty, I have nothing to be proud about. But I have let that desire to not be prideful push aside almost all of the enjoyment that I should feel in the presence of God. My desire to not be full of myself has blocked the sense of joy I should feel in those rare moments where my heart does align as much as it can with God's heart. There is a joy, and a peace, and a beauty that can be found in the presence of God, and somehow in my effort to not be prideful I've allowed my pride to stop me from fully resting in it.

The lesson I'm learning right now is that it's not prideful to enjoy doing what I was made to do, especially in the few times that I do it well. There's no shame in taking pleasure in this because I'm not taking pleasure in what I'm doing. I'm taking pleasure in the work my Father in heaven is doing.

Here on this earth I will never reach the full potential God created me with and the realization that I'm a broken person in a broken world can be a good one. But I have to remember that I can't allow it stop me from reveling in the joy of God slowly mending that brokenness and moving me one step closer to being who he knows I can be. In the end it's about knowing that even though I'm completely unworthy, God's love for me is absolutely overwhelming. And there's nothing wrong with enjoying it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts on Systemic Racism and DEI

-
 Over the course of the last few years, but specifically in the last month I’ve done some reading and, maybe more importantly, had a number of conversations regarding DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and the topic of systemic racism. These conversations were with a somewhat diverse group of people falling into many different categories when it comes to; age, race, culture, and gender. During these conversations it became clear to me that there is often a misconception of what the topic and term “systemic racism” seems to embody as well as what the policies, broken or not, around DEI attempt to do. As a Pastor in a local church, and more importantly as a Christ follower, I believe firmly that each of us is created with inherent worth. As we read in the creation account in Genesis, each one of us is created as an image bearer of God. Because I hold this view, having these conversations and being able to share my experience is incredibly important to me. With that being said, my...
Read more

A Broken Heart

-
At my church we sing a song with a lyric that says “break my heart for what breaks yours” and today my heart is broken. I have often said that as Christians we have a heart for people because God is a god with a heart for people. In my prayers I so often ask God to give me his heart for people, when I read my bible I’m drawn to stories of Kind David because he is described as a man after God’s own heart, I cannot imagine a better way to be described. It pains me to admit that when I pray for a heart after God’s own most often what I really mean is a vague feeling of love for everyone, the desire to “do good” and “serve people selflessly.” So often I link the feeling of “love” with a feeling of happiness and of joy, but love is so much more than that. Over the last week God has answered my prayer in a way that I was not necessarily expecting. My heart is heavy, it breaks for a broken a world, a world where bad things happen to people. I don’t say good people, or bad people,...
Read more

The Message We're Sending

-
My typical policy is to stay away from social media. I shrug my shoulders and say, if I want people to know how I feel about something I’ll tell them in person. But in this moment, I cannot begin to contain the absolute outrage and disgust I’m feeling. I’ve watched and listened as the Brock Turner case has unfolded. I’ve seen people call for a longer sentence, and I’ve heard people defend him by saying “he’s just a kid” or “think about what this will do to his life”, and I’ve shrugged my shoulders and stayed quiet. Well, no more.  I have had conversations in the last few years where I’ve stated that I feel that as a country and as a culture we’re making strides towards equality and that we’re finally beginning to value women. Well, all of that just went out the window. The moment when a young man, who RAPED a young woman, was told that his sentence would be only 6 months because we wouldn’t want to ruin his life or hold back his potential, all of our talk about equality, and human ...
Read more