Dear God, I suppose I can settle for something you do for me.

Its funny the things we sing to God.

I love worship chapel. It is the single most refreshing thing in a crazy week, 40 minutes to meditate on God and sing out to him words more eloquent than my private groaning.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, worship chapel is the most frustrating 40 minutes of my life. I come to worship God in song and end up asking for all sorts of things and putting everything in my perspective.

Like telling God, "your grace is enough."

Really?

Really?

God created us. He's sovereign and powerful. Mighty and Righteous. Yet, we have the audacity to inform him, ever so kindly, that something he does for us is enough.

If God were cynical (and I'm grateful he is not) he would respond to our foolishness with "Oh golly gee thanks! You, who I created, who I redeemed, who I continually forgive, you are contented by something I give to you? Wow. I'm so glad you're happy. I'm so glad that as long as I seem gracious to you, you're happy. Because really, that's all I care about."

And, yes, I know my bitterness cannot be transposed onto God, but I think we're missing something. God  is enough. Not his grace. God himself. I'm not contented with merely having grace from my God. That's not enough for me. I need all of him. Call me greedy, but I need God and all that he does. I need his justice, his mercy, his sovereign good will, his love, his benevolence, his omniscience. I need a God that's more than gracious.

And I have one.

So, I'm sorry, I can't sing along with you in a happy refrain telling my mighty God that one of his attributes is enough for me. I need all of him.

And more importantly, it's not about me. It's not about what I think is enough. I think I'm wasting my time crying out to God that's he sufficient. What he needs to hear is more like, "God, I trust you even when I don't feel your grace. Even when I'm discontented with you. God, you are my everything, even when I don't act like it. Even when I don't believe, I want to."

So, here's my prayer:
God, I don't really feel like your being all that gracious right now. I don't feel like you're enough. But I know you are more than everything I need and more than I can want. I know that my human mind can't comprehend how your grace works and can't understand your logic, but I trust it. I trust that you know what you're doing. And Lord, I don't say that to build your ego. I say it so I can remind myself of what you really are so that I may feebly attempt to worship you in a way that is honoring. You are worthy of the utmost praise, and I am incapable of giving it. But all I am, I lay before you. And I ask that you teach me how to love you more, not for my sake, but for yours.

Journey

Sometimes, you just don't know what to expect.

Right now, at 2 am, I am sitting in bed reminiscing about a weekend well spent. 2 days ago, I hoped in a car with a sea of near strangers and drove to a place I had never been to attend a wedding of dear friends.

It's been an adventure.

My traveling companions included a close friend and 3 men I hardly know and vastly different. Sitting in a cafe drinking strong coffee, we talk about God, ethnicity and expectations. We're real about who we are, what we feel, what matters in life.

An hour later, we're swimming in a pool telling hilarious jokes and faking tai chi and ballet.

There is something about these people that allows me to be completely myself. I don't have to put on a charade: I can be me. Fully. It's a beautiful thing to be with people who are so real that there is no need to put on a front. I'm loving this. I only wish I felt the same way about the rest of the people in my life.

It makes me wonder where the problem is. Am I simply unwilling (or more rightly, afraid) to be myself or is it the people I'm with?

Mark made a comment that stuck with me. He said, "If you stand up for the truth, it doesn't matter what people say."

It doesn't matter if the people I'm around would love me less if I were really me. I need to stand up for the truth. I need to love God and how he has made me. I need to be fully me without this mask that makes me out to be a good Chrisitan. I need to recognize my need to be loved, my wrong placement of self-worth and my pride that stop me from fully embracing who God has made me.

I am a child of God. I am wonderfully and beauitfully made. So why am I pretending to be something other than who I am?

Chubby Writers and Fake Friends.

Sometimes I wonder if I could succeed as a writer. I'm certain, if I ever was a writer, I would sleep until noon, be jittery from excess caffeine, and I would be fat.

I judge all of this from the 6 shots of espresso I poured into my system today, the fact its an hour past my bedtime and I am eating a delicious cinnamon roll while feeling the need to play the creative card, like every other twenty-something with a blog.

To my real point: I think people prefer to spend their time with people who care for them just a touch more than they care for the other people.

Today I studied with a friend whom I care for dearly. We have a good friendship; one where I am in awe with him and view him more highly than I probably should. I respect him, in the truest sense.

I was wondering today why we were such good friends. After a full day spent together, I wondered why  he chose me as a companion. There were many people he could have spent time with, yet he ended up laughing over flashcards next to me.

Then it donned on me: he enjoyed being with me because I was enamored with me. Who doesn't want to spend time with someone who treats them like a genius? Who compliments you frequently, who values you infinitely?

Folding laundry while chatting on Facebook, another dear friend of mine began chatting with me. Ten minutes in, I realized just why I adored him so much: he cares for me far more than I do for him.

And there we have it: the foolish love of self cloaked in seeming friendship.

Snow-covered Confessional

I want to start this new year off: with honesty. I spend a good portion of last year working on being more honest with others, and this year, I want to be more honest with God and myself. Its funny how easy it is to believe something that is completely untrue, while fully knowing its untrue.  Such is the doublespeak of our human existence. We talk hopefully, unaware that it is, in fact, hope. We deceive ourselves into believing grand lies – knowingly lying until we forget.  This year will be the same. And that's being fully honest. But the best I can do is try. Try and fail, but try I must, for honesty takes time, but its worth it.

So here's my confession. My list of truthful statements to myself, God and you.


I can swooned with Bon Iver. Without much effort either.

I have been thinking of boys and crushes since I was 5 years old. If anything, its more a part of my adult life than my childhood.  And somewhat secretly, I love it.

I am terrified of the library in the dark. When the library is closed and the lights are turned off, my heartbeat pounds out my chest as I turn the corner into the dark corner of the 290's, wondering if this may be the last thing I do before some madman kills me.

I passionately love theology. I dream of being a scholar, but honestly, I don't think I'll ever get my Ph.D.

I love having plans, making plans, changing plans.

Sometimes, I don't want to be a Christian. Sometimes, I just want to live for today, without consequences.

Sometimes, I read the Bible for fun.

When I'm feeling stupid, I read John 21 and make fun of Peter.

When the world seems to be imploding, I read Job.  I tell him he should suck it up. I tell him its not so bad. Knowing that he already knows that; I'm the one that needs to learn.

Sometimes, I like rules more than grace and religion more than Christ.

At heart, I'm a Pharisee.

But every now and then, when I've proven that I always fail, I crawl to the feet of Jesus and repent of everything that I am, everything I've done, everything I want. I sit there, eyes full of tears, and I tell him that I'm sorry. I tell him I feel guilty. I tell him that I'll take him as a shield and a sacrifice. I'll wear him when I face judgment, knowing that my sins have been cleared, that my punishment has been paid, and I tell him that ultimately, I'm just an ungrateful little child. But at least I'm his ungrateful little child.

And one truth is the most important to remind myself:  I am loved by God. I am his beloved child. I have life in him alone.

Giving Kegs to Monks

I am reading a collection of thoughts by Thomas Merton. At the end of one of his quips, he writes, "I write this in the woodshed, surrounded by the charred, sweet-smelling wood of smashed-up whiskey barrels: not ours, naturally. Kegs given to the monks to break up for firewood."

I found it funny. I wonder who gives kegs to monks; what logic a person would have to find that a good idea.

And I realized its not so foreign really. Sometimes, we —I — do precisely this. I give to others that which is utterly inappropriate.

When I was 16, I learned a piece of wisdom from the OC. The show said that they way you spend you New Year's Eve is the way you will spend your new year.  For that I am worried.

I spend my New Year's feelings out of place at a place that is supposed to feel like home. I spent it critical and judgmental – wishing that I was someplace else, someplace better. I realized that I had changed too much to ever feel at home here anymore.

But, thinking of sweet-smelling whiskey barrels in the hands of an old monk, I realized that I spend my New Year's thinking of me. Thinking about how I was unhappy. I forgot to spend the evening enjoying old friends, remembering a good year — a good decade that had passed us by.

Today is the beginning of a new year. The first decade in which I must be fully an adult. In honor of the New Year, I'm chopping up kegs to turn into firewood. I'm taking my past mistakes and chucking it into the fire to warm and enlighten my new year.

To the past 10 years: thanks for crafting me into someone worthwhile. Thanks for taking me from obnoxious preteen to mean teenager, over-sentimental college student to adult. Thanks for still ticking through no matter what became of me.

To the next 10 years: I'm not ready for you yet, but I'll take you in stride. So, let's get started.