No home for the wanderer, no rest for the pilgrim

I can't quite put a finger on the feeling in my gut. It's one thing to acknowledge the difficulties facing me, and the spiritual nature of the fight that is both behind and ahead of me. It's something entirely different to live it. I feel like I'm trying to swim through an ocean of quicksand in a dense fog. Around my waist is a rope, and on the other end of the rope is God, and he's pulling me through. It's an apt metaphor given that I have to keep swimming, but I am painfully aware that I'm not getting to the other side without his help. That being said every day is another one wondering if today is the day I can't fight anymore. I can't help but wonder when this never-ending well of faith energy will dry up. If I'm not concerned about that I'm wondering when I'll get pulled out of this quicksand.

I guess that's why they call faith the hard road. It's still a daily project for me to release power and control. It's hard because I want to be strong. I want to be a warrior, to get respect, and be master of my destiny. The fact is that no matter how physically strong I get, how influential I become, and how intelligent I get there is no such thing as total control. Which is why I keep offering up what control I can give up to a being who embodies perfect control.

The frustration today is the enemy and his/their resources. I'm not a big believer in the devil's power and I'm no baptist. However I don't think there is a believer in Christ alive that doesn't know there are some dark powers out there. Some of them are innocent seeming: ambition, pride, jealous love and independence. However knowing that the motivations are good doesn't change the fight I'm fighting. I have killed paranoia dead with one thought: What profit is there in persecuting me?
However that just opens a deeper and darker door. I realize that the people I have cast as my adversaries are humans with authentic human needs, and justified human motivations. My honor demands that I not only love my enemies as best I can, but that I attempt to understand them. It's also the simple strategic fact that knowing the enemy is the best way of getting news first.
Just because they are honest (by my standards) humans doesn't mean what they are doing isn't wrong. It's also true that just because I can't point to one person as my enemy doesn't mean there aren't obstacles in my path. It feels like those obstacles have limitless resources, because I have been fighting a long time. That's just my pride talking though, no one on this earth has limitless resources. For every obstacle there is a path, and for every pain there is a comfort.

A further challenge is that though I go before God childlike in my need, his answer is to the adult me. The adult who is strong enough to fight, and the man who he needs me to be. He is able, but it seems like he wants to use this fire to refine me.

I wish so often that I could understand what task he has to form me to do. Almost as strongly as I beg him to end this torment, in one way or another. He answers always "I will, hold on." or "You'll be seeing it soon enough." Oh how my eyes long to see, how my back longs for the rest only he can provide. Would that I could gnaw my own legs off I would if it would bring my answer even a day closer. However that answer is one of mercy, and mercy can't be earned. Mercy comes when we're ready, and when it's best for us. Yet again I say he knows better, and he is as near to me as one being can be to another without being one. He won't let go, not even if I could turn away, he would drag me back. He knows my buttons, and I won't change them because I trust him. Trust pretty much sums up the trouble, and faith sums up the answer. 

Out of the frying pan

Just so you know, for irony purposes the post when the thing I'm worried about actually happens will be called "and into the fire."
Once again I'm dealing with a threat, but I'm just going to keep moving towards it. I'd like to think that's bravery, and it is a bit. It's more faith. When events outside my control conspire against me I remember that when I'm out of control God is more in control than ever. So when I come to the end of me, again, I remember all the times before.

He has never failed me. I've faced so much worse, and over and over he has shielded me, or moved me into the right position. I praise his steadfastness, and in fact I take joy in knowing that when he gives me a chance to lean on him, things are changing, and perhaps for the best.

More encouraging is that I saw this coming. For 10 months I thrashed and couldn't sit still, and the world stood still. For the last month and a half I have been still, and after being still things start to happen. When I trust him there is no higher honor than for the winds to rise, the storms to grumble, and my feet to stay planted on solid ground.

delusion, dreams, and faith

I had the vision again last night. It appears to be more vivid when a certain chemical balance is reached in my body. Which as with most other "evidence" only complicates the matter further.

I don't want to talk about the vision itself, because I already have and the content is meaningless compared with the implications of whether it is delusional, faith, or just a goal.

Initially it was my total belief that it was a vision of the future, that God had brought it to me and therefor my trust of it was total. Now we are entering my 7th year of coping with this concept. I still entertain the possibility of God as the source of what I saw. At the same time it doesn't have to be.

If what I saw comes into reality then it will most likely be God's doing, because as of yet I have no idea how to get there. Previously I have used my lack of means as evidence that it is a "God-sized dream" and therefor from God. That doesn't have any kind of logical standing however. I admit that God is above reason and his logic is beyond mine by a long shot.

The facts are these, reason or not, logic or not, my trust is in God. I don't really even know if I should be hashing over this, given that it is my job to cast my cares on the Lord.

It isn't wrong from a faith point of view to have questions, or even doubts. Very little is actually wrong... Lacking faith is wrong I suppose.

Which I don't. I don't doubt even for a second his ability to make the vision a reality. What I doubt is me. Yes, I'll admit that I am a wonderfully made creation, and therefor within me (and within us all) lies the ability to touch the supernatural. I am however quite flawed. I believed in something much more mundane that I thought I could do, and I watched it fall apart. I am lucky that I'm not in charge, because I didn't want to survive to see today. It is my belief that God will make it worthwhile, surviving. I can never again say that just because I believe it will be so.

I doubt myself because I know I'm a human, and I know that other humans I have trusted in have let me down. I made a mistake, believing that willpower and intelligence can survive anything. God is all that survives, and God is all I can rely on.

God, however faithful, is slow to respond on some topics. It is very frustrating to keep living. It's frustrating to understand that time is like a river. Right now I am forcing it to go as quickly as I can, swimming with the stream trying to get to calmer waters. I can stop time, slow it to a crawl and live in a moment for eternities. I did it, in year one and two of this journey. I still do it, from time to time, but lately it only lasts a few minutes. There just aren't long stretches of time worth preserving...

 Which brings up an interesting point, God created all of this, even time. Every moment with God is a moment worth living in, and worth extending... However on a counterpoint all the abilities he gives us are worth using as well. I am blessed to control my personal experience of time. Some people can do other things, and just because using a gift means neglecting another.... many choices are binary, and the binary nature of those choices doesn't make one thing good and one thing bad. I could choose to process these feeling by playing my games, and sometimes I do. Sometimes I choose to process my problems by make them go away, by ignoring them. Even though facing my problems is productive in it's way as well. Writing is great for clarity and efficiency, which is why I choose it when I think there is something to figure out.

Regardless of which path I go towards I don't feel that I am betraying the other path by taking the one I do.
Fasting is a great example of how faith calls us to abandon reality, abandon the ple asures of this world to seek faith. However God also calls us to see the wonder in others, to tend to his sheep in service to him, and what is more reality focused than that?
Does fasting and it's reality separation hold more goodness than focusing on what is here and now? No, so point resolved.

I still don't know what my call is to do with what is in front of me, which is what matters at the moment.  The journey I'm on right now is through the desert, and there are times that the best I can do is say no to temptation. The temptation is to trust in the dream, because the dream is good and trusting it feels good. That doesn't get me out though, because I can't trust anyone or anything else to do what only the Lord can. The other temptation is to drift from faith, because living on reason alone is tempting. However what a sad world it would be, without the wonder of faith. How meaningless my life is without God. Further I'd be lying to myself. I'd be betraying the potential of being the best me I can be.

*sigh*, another day, another step, another dream, and another wrestle with what it means to have hope in the abandoned land. Another struggle to be myself, and rely on him. That's what faith is; knowing you don't have to rely on him and doing it anyway. If we were just an evolutionary product I doubt we would be wired for faith. We wouldn't love romance, and idealism. Romance and idealism have no place in logic.

I keep dreaming the only dream of faith I know is sure, that with time comes clarity, and the time is coming of total clarity.

what was then, what isn't now

Most of the time I like to try and plaster over my hurt and pain about my past. The biggest reason is I don't like to whine. It isn't a pride thing, it's that no one gives a damn, and that makes talking about it pretty pointless. I've pretty much stopped talking about pain. I mention it to God from time to time, since he never gets tired of hearing about my shit, but humans have no such interest.

I guess I started down this path hoping to find why I'm not trusting or vulnerable anymore, and already I have my answer: I don't find empathy in others. Not to a level that makes me open myself to others. I am capable of empathy for others, but I use it strategically, it's not really that useful for relationships.

Well shit, I don't see a fix for this, apart from deeper into therapy. I'd have to find a competent therapist capable of understanding/diagnosing/treating the gap between my current psyche and well adjusted... whatever that means. Further though openness would be lovely for my relationships with close family, with everyone else it would be,  a step in the wrong direction.

Feeling things is great when people are protective of your feelings. When you live in a toxic world full of hurtful/careless people feelings are a liability. Expectations line up with realities. I expect people to be self interested and careless. So far that works. Sadly being cynical is said to be bad for faith. I do try to find good in others. I've noticed that very few people set out to be evil for example. Most people do what we would call bad things through totally justifiable motivations. I think everyone wants to be good. I just wish anyone was. Good of course is relatively subjective. The world I want to live in is different than what other people want... I'd rather be happy than wealthy, and I'd much rather provide my own validation than get it from others.