I talked with my mom about it an explained how I often just feel like a gerbil: they live their whole lives in a cage. They dig through their sawdust to get to the bottom of things. They get there, turn around, and realize that all their digging has created a big, unmanageable pile behind them. That's my life. I live in a cage full of useless, meaningless stuff, and I spend all my time just managing my possessions. I never get to the bottom of things without creating more problems for myself.
In any case, I have to deal with a great deal of "stuff" as I anticipate this apartment move. On the one hand, there is so much that I feel I need. On the other hand, I wonder if I'll have room to store it all. My daily life is a constant oscillation between these two concerns, so it's interesting to realize the parallels between this issue, and the things going on in my spiritual as of late.
My heart is like a house. My schoolwork is one room, my career ambitions are a room, then there's my family, my attitudes, my entertainment, sexuality, friends, hobbies......but between so many of those rooms, the doors are closed.
There is so much of God that I long to understand. I want to keep packing in the facts and the knowledge and the experiences, but my tiny room that I've given over to God is already full of facts, but those facts have no meaning because they are not where they belong. They're just packed in from floor to cieling. Just like a blender has no meaning if it's not on the kitchen counter, or like a TV remote divorced from the TV set is a useless piece of plastic and wires, all the spiritual knowledge and memory verses and junk have no real meaning to me because I've kept them shut up in a dark, tiny room instead of opening the doors and letting God have the ENTIRE house. Only when I allow God to move the blender into the kitchen and the TV remote into the living room of my heart can those spiritual facts and knowledge truly gain meaning.
I see now that the "more" I've been begging God for isn't something I can have right now. There's just not room. First, I need to open up the doors and let God into my schoolwork, let God into my career, into my family, into my attitudes, entertainment, sexuality, friends, hobbies....I need to start working with Him to open doors and have experiences that will begin to put the meaningless bits of spiritual knowledge into their proper and meaningful places in the home of my heart. When things start getting put in their proper places, maybe I'll start to have room for some of the "more" that I've been asking for. I've been longing for a life where the sun shines through the windows, and there's a warm breeze you can feel everywhere-- a heart house where I don't feel addled, and I'm safe no matter how vulnerable. I need to open up, and build a foundation of genuine belief rather than just a tiny room crammed with Bible verses and "right answers" that mean nothing to me.
It's a hard realization to come to, partly because I have been so excited about the "more" that God has to offer, and so disappointed to hear God say no when I ask for it. It's been hard to trust that He really wants the best for me. But this is a good thing. And if this is what God is leading me towards, then it's the best thing.
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