I just realised what I was doing all this time of not praying and giving into temptation with little, if any, struggle and even trying to get out of church by making up excuses for myself like "it's boring, I don't belong there" and so on. I came upon the reality of my actions by listening one day to MyFavoriteStation.net. Actually, I just found that website when I was looking for piano music I can play because, yes folks, Im learning to play the piano and the music in the lesson plan just doesn't cut it with me or my teacher. But on that station there was this "commercial", in quotations as there are no commercials on that station but the ones about themselves and encouraging you, saying something like "At one point or another we all try to run away from God". And that was my realisation point. I was running away from God! It then went on stating that, well, there is no place we can go where He isn't there. Can we flee to the stars? Can we flee so far from the sun that it looks like a flashlight shining from the end of the street? They left the answer to you, and my answer was "uhh....". So right now that's what I'm going to talk about. My mistakes. I may add a couple "testimonies", as Americans like to call them, from the NYC trip in my ranting if that is what some of you want to read instead, but you will have to dig and dig hard. No matter how hard I try I just can't organize my posts into "Well Monday we went tothe UN headcourters to pray" and "On Tuesday...". Soon I lose interest in it. So I will post in my own, un-unique, selfish style. I will talk about whatever comes to mind and whatever I feel like talking about. So deal with it! :P
But running away from God. It sounds so silly to us all I suppose, even the non-Christians, or maybe even Atheists! But yet we all want to do just that. Over the weeks I noticed a new feeling in my adolescent and growing body, a feeling that I just wanted to shut out: I felt like giving God a big punch in the nose and running away to somewhere where He wont find me! That's so thilly sc, tho thilly though. But still, I wanted to punch Him and then run. That's all I wanted. And, actually, it's not as hard as it sounds. I started using the excuse "I'm too tired to kneel and pray" and only prayed when I hit a rock bottom. My struggles with pornography came back and I started looking actively (with some reserve. I was still trying to pull myself back to the praying person I used to be a year or so ago) for a way around the filter, which I found but will not tell ya'll. After a while pornography became less and less a threat and more and more an open invitation to let go of the stress and thinking and indulge into beautiful people of all kinds. Then I noticed something terrifying: I was starting to lose my sense of guilt. I was starting to have two or more personalities as well. A good Christian at church, a good son at home, a peace keeper between my brothers upstairs. And yet, I still feel like I want to be that Christian again. I want to pray, I want to be with God, I want to...*LOVE*...God. Speaking of which, that was, is, and I suspect will be my problem in the future as well. I have absolutely no idea on how to love God, I mean I know what my Youth Pastor told me in his email: that to love Him is to love the least of His. And I love people with a passion, especially after NYC and the homeless woman teaching me things I forgot by now but will be in my subconscious memory forever. But still, I don't feel anything for God. Yes, yes, I know that believing in God is not some feeling that we are supposed to have but true faith that He will be with us. I know that God wants us to love each other as ourselves and love Him with all our being (paraphrase)…but…have you ever noticed how for everything there is some excuse? Usually to the equivalent of “but it’s too hard”, but it’s always an excuse. Anyway, look at this paragraphy as a crying out to you to tell me how love God. I mean, how do I love an infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniloving being who came down to this limited earth and gave His son into our hands? It shouldn't be -that- hard.
Well, that's all I could rant right now. So onwards to NYC and stories! We were visiting the homeless next to the only Kmart in Manhatten, and I was praying and singing to myself praises for God all the way on the trip there via the subway, when we (we meaning me, Cole the Youth Pastor, and a girl whose name I can't remember right now but we'll call her Kate) found our first victims. They were 3 homeless guys who told us that they are Christians and that yes, they would like the food, iced tea, and hygiene things in a bag. It seemed like there was a leader among them, who was the loudest of all and who liked to talk to us a lot. He told us how if they really wanted they could mug us, steal our money, steal our clothes, and leave us for the dead. But they won't; because that would be wrong. He told us how we wouldn't last a day on the streets. I asked him if we can pray for them, which he said yes, and we prayed that God would guide them in all they do and that they would be lifted up to Him. But that was only the beginning. We went after the group, as we were walking to them a lady overheard me tell the three homeless people that "May God bless you!", and this lady (who was not homeless) muttered "And God bless you too!". We started talking, she was speed walking real fast, but by the time we got to the God part us 3 arrived by the rest of our group and Kate had to yank me aside so I wont miss them. But that was still only the beginning! I went to our group and asked how it was going, so we started talking a little. Cole came back to us after about 5 minutes to tell us that there was one lady who was already talked to but was not given food, iced tea, or hygiene stuff. Erin and I decided to go over there and give her the items. I'm telling all of you, do NOT stereotype!:
stupid. And they are not in as much need spiritually as the government and organizations might have you think.The lady, Passa was her name, was an African-American, single, homeless lady with a little baggage of clothes. She looks like the stereotypical poor. But then she opens her mouth and you can literally feel the Holy Spirit moving around and in her! Her Bible is underlined and highlighted, just like a Pastors, but with one key difference: there was not one word left unhighlighted or un-underlined. Everysingle word was covered. The Bible was falling apart, she had to ducktape it a couple times, for which Passa even apologized. She told us about how she is waiting for the second coming, how everything we do we have to do for the Lord, expressing our love to Him. That was the key thing: everything we do we must do to glorify Him, that is how we express our love for Him. You know, now that I think about it, loving God might be hard, but I can express my earnest desire to love Him. If I love the "least of these", I am, theoratically, loving Christ. Think about that for a second. ;) I know this sounds very rushed now, but I just want to thank Passa: Passa, I thank you for your teachings and for letting God work through you. You have no idea how much you taught me. Even if I forgot your exact words, I do remember one thing: that God can and will work through everyone, that the homeless is not synonymous with useless even though both have "less" in them. So thank you Passa.
For my readers, I apologize for the confusing post. Hopefully it could serve someone something, maybe a little hope that if this confused teenage boy can get through this in a half an hour then so could I. If the certain someone will allow me, I will post a post of hers that just got me going today, and not just that post but I will post my thoughts on that. Thoughts meaning how it gave me hope. But thats for another post, not this one.
As always, may God bless you in all you do and may He guide you closer to Him,
sc
No comments:
Post a Comment