Waiting...

I'm not a patient person.

Those of you who know me well would probably say that of the fruits of the spirit, that one is the last on my list.

Now I'm singing the fruits of the spirit song in my head.  Great.

Anyways, I'm talking about patience today because I heard a sermon at Harvest Bible Chapel this past Sunday on waiting.

Apropos in the season of Advent.

Yes, I just looked up the spelling of the word "apropos."

Okay, so the sermon was about Simeon, the guy who was promised by God that he would see the Messiah and then he could die.

Yes, that's kind of morbid, but that's not the point.

Simeon is (presumably) an old man. He is a righteous man, a Jew who goes to the temple frequently.  He (like every other Jewish person) is waiting for the Messiah, the man who will deliver the Jews from Roman rule.  And the Holy Spirit tells him that he would not die until he saw the Messiah.

We don't know how long Simeon waits.  There is a 400 year gap between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament.  Simeon could have been born any time in that 400 years.  We don't get to hear his history.  But the main idea here is that Simeon trusted God, and he waited.  And he probably waited a long time.  He probably checked out every single child that came to the temple until Jesus came.

The pastor asked us how many of us are waiting on God for something, and just about everyone raised their hands, including myself.  The pastor told us that God always keeps his promises, and although waiting is not fun, we're not waiting in vain.

But that got me thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know).

What exactly are we waiting on God for?

The examples that the pastor used in the sermon were getting a job, or finding a spouse, or waiting to heal from a sickness.

And the thing that gets me is God never promised any of those things.

I know what I'm waiting on.  I've been waiting on it for what seems like forever.  I'm waiting for God to give me a husband.  I've wanted to get married for a very long time.  And I'm frustrated that God has not given me a spouse.  And my patience has been stretched thin for a very long time.

But when did God ever promise me a husband?

Answer: never.  God never promised that I would get married.  God never promised that anyone would get married.  Or that anyone would get their dream job.  Or that anyone would be rich.

As far as I know, God only promised two things:
1.)  A Messiah would come to save us from our sins and give us eternal life.
2.)  That same Messiah will come again to rule over heaven and earth.

We can check off number 1.  God did that 2000ish years ago when he sent Jesus.

What we really need to wait for is number 2.  Jesus promised he would come again.  And he will come again.

I don't think it's wrong to wait for God to give us other things.  I'm still going to wait on God to give me a husband.  But I'm giving up on the idea that because I want it, I will have it.  It may not happen.  Other people may never get a job, or be healed from any of their diseases.

God gave us Jesus, that we may have eternal life in heaven.  Can we just think about eternal life for a second?  The key word here is "eternal."  I can't wrap my brain around that.  Our lives here on earth are just a blip on the radar of eternal. We get so enmeshed in thinking about our earthly lives that they become SO important.  Making money and marrying Mr./Mrs. Right, these things don't matter because they don't last.

You know what lasts?  Jesus.

Put your hope in that.  And wait on his return.

Big Ball of Emotion

It's quite possible that I am emotionally stunted.

Wonderful.

Usually when I write on this blog, I give some hope at the end.  Well, at least I try to.  I try to relate it to God and his goodness and his faithfulness to all of us.

I don't know if I can do that today.

I'm in a class called Dynamics of Spiritual Life.  It's a great class.  One of our assignments is to do this thing called a "Design Paper" in which we figure out the design God has for us in our lives.  Which is fantastic.  Except it made me rehash my entire childhood.  Which brought up unresolved emotional issues from high school.

You'd think that 10 years after my senior year of high school, I would be over it.  But apparently I'm not.  And I figured out why.

First, let me tell you what I remember from senior year.

My boyfriend broke up with me two weeks before my senior year.  All my friends took his side in the break up and abandoned me, essentially leaving me friendless.  My mother had to force me to go to the homecoming game, where I sat alone.  I asked my parents multiple times if I could switch to the local public high school, and they said no.  The guy I asked to prom ditched me for another girl.

That's all I remember.  I didn't realize that I had blocked so much of it out.  I remember talking to one of  those friends who abandoned me, and he asked me if I had remembered a significant conversation that we had, and I had no recollection of it.  Someone else asked me if I remembered being at an event that happened, and I couldn't remember it.

My issue is not the ex-boyfriend.  I'm over that.  And thankful that we broke up, because we would have been unhappy together, and I clearly needed to grow emotionally and spiritually.  My issue is that when I needed my friends the most, when I was hurt and alone, they pushed me away.

And so starts the trust and loneliness issues that have been plaguing me for the last 10 years.

I was telling Melissa Z. a story the other day, and I told her that she was the second person to whom I had told that story, and she said, "you don't let people in very much, do you?"

I was under the impression that I let people in all the time.  However, she got me thinking.  I really don't let many people in.  When the big life events happen, I push people away because I don't want them to see that I'm hurting.  Or I play it off like I'm fine.  I've gotten so good at compartmentalizing my emotions that I don't even know when I'm doing it.

So 10 years later, I'm having a meltdown over something that happened to me in high school.  That's how long I've pushed aside that emotion.

I feel ridiculous that this is even happening to me.  I also feel sad, and hurt, that my 18 year old self had to deal with stuff that I didn't know how to handle.  I'm sad that all my friends deserted me.  I'm sad that I've been lonely for 10 years.  I feel like a child, stamping my foot and saying, "That's not fair!" Senior year of high school is supposed to be one of the best times in life, and it was the worst for me.  And that makes me angry.

I'm not writing this so that you will feel sorry for me.  I'm writing this so that you know what I'm dealing with when I'm crying in the middle of church, or if I leave the room, or if I shut my door in your face, or if I just don't seem like talking.

Anger was the one negative emotion I was ever allowed to feel at home.  We didn't cry, or feel hurt, we just got mad.  Because it never lasted long.  You asked for forgiveness, and then it went away.  When something sad happened, I remember my parents telling me, "You're fine.  Get over it."  Which, ironically, is how I respond to other people when bad things happen to them.  It takes every ounce of willpower NOT to say that to other people.  Because most of the time it's NOT fine, and they can't just get over it.

I thought I was over what happened in high school.  But I'm not.  I'm confused and angry at God that all of that happened to me.  I'm sad that I have so few good memories (the only good memory I have of high school is Octoberfest, which I love to talk about, so ask me about it.  There will be singing.).  And I'm left this big ball of emotion.  I'm crying out 10 years worth of hurt and loneliness.  And I don't know how to make it any better.  I don't know how to make the loneliness go away.  Maybe I have to start letting people in, but I don't want them to see me all emotional, because then I start thinking that people are just being my friend because they feel sorry for me, because I'm just the sad lonely girl.  And I don't like to share things about myself, because, as this Design Paper has revealed to me, my life is sad.  I don't have good memories or stories to share.  No one wants to hear the stories of how I sat by myself in the cafeteria at Hope.  No one wants to hear about how I almost left.  No one wants to hear about the weekends I spent alone at Calvin.  No one wants to hear about the 2 years when I lived with my parents and would stay in my room for 18 hours a day.

So I either tell people about the bad times in my life, at which point they feel sorry for me.  Or I push all the sadness aside and never deal with it and pretend to be happy.  Either way, I'm screwed.

I don't know what to do.  I don't even know where to begin.  And in the midst of all of this emotional stuff, I have to write an exegesis paper.  And a design paper.  Time doesn't stop while you deal with the crap of life.  It would be nice though.

Great Expectations

Expectations are a dangerous thing.

We've all been asked the question, "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?"  Right there you're setting yourself up for failure.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to have goals and dreams and hopes and wishes.

But when you expect something, a lot can go wrong.

10 years ago, I was 18.  I was starting my senior year of high school.  I was living the dream, on top of the world.

Okay, that's not true.  I was miserable and had no friends and couldn't wait to get out of high school.

However, when I was 18, I felt like I had the next 10 years figured out.

I was going to Hope College, where I would major in education and meet an awesome guy and we would get married right after graduation and then move back to Chicago where I had a job waiting for me as a high school teacher at one of the Christian schools in the area and we would get a house and a dog and by the time I turned 28 I would have one kid or at least one on the way.

I was so sure that that was what God wanted for me because it was what I wanted.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I changed my major 5 times in college (and I still graduated in 3 1/2 years! Crazy!) before settling on sociology and religion.  I met a guy, dated him for 2 years, and then broke up with him right before senior year.  I went to seminary round 1.  I got a masters degree.  I got a job and moved back in with my parents.  I went back to school (again!) 1000 miles away from home.

The things that I wanted most in life at 18 were not the things I received.

It's come to my attention that I hated my life for a really long time. I was heartbroken my senior year of high school.  I was miserable and sad at Hope because I had alienated all my friends for a guy.  I regretted not taking the job offer in California.  I wanted to quit Calvin more than once.  Loneliness pervaded the 2 years that I lived at home.  For 8 years of my life I was sad.

In those 8 years, I constantly wondered why God had put me on the earth if I was going to be miserable.  I felt lost, without a sense of purpose, and I was not living the life that I had expected I would be living.

I kept fighting with God, pushing him away and trying to do my own thing because I thought what I could plan was better than his plans for me.

I have this fear in life, the fear that if I trust God with my future, he's going to do something crazy, like make me be a poor missionary in Azerbaijan.  That's a real country.  I looked it up.  Or, worse yet, God is going to make me be single for the rest of my life (GASP!).

However, when I follow God's plans instead of making my own, good things happen.

Coming to Gordon-Conwell wasn't in my plans.  I never wanted to go back to school.  After I finished at Calvin I said, "That's it.  I'm done.  I'm never going back to school."  Two years later, I went back.  Against my will, really.  And I can honestly say that it was the first place that I had been in 8 years that  I wasn't miserable.  In fact, I feel happy.  I feel ecstatic.  I feel overjoyed.  Just being at Gordon-Conwell.

It's funny, because I have all of these trust issues.  Yet, when I look at my life, the ONE time that I trusted God with something big, a great thing happened.  So why do I have so much trouble trusting God?

I don't know.  I can't tell you that.  My theological brain tells me that it's probably sin.

If my 18-year-old self and my 28-year-old self had a conversation, my 18-year-old self would probably be disappointed.  She would be sad that all of the expectations that she had for her life didn't pan out.  My 28-year-old self would say, "Dang girl, you skinny."  But she would also say, "look, your life might not have turned out like you wanted, but that's not a bad thing.  You are in the best place you could possibly be, with some of the best people you could possibly be with. Get over yourself."

And possibly an argument would ensue and then we would make up and go shoe shopping.

So, has my life turned out the way I expected it to?  No.  Is that okay?  Yes.  Am I still going to plan for the future?  Yes.  Will I be disappointed if my plans go awry?  Maybe at first.  But I'll get over it.  Because it means that God has something bigger and better for me.  And even if I'm called to go be a missionary in Azerbaijan, I won't be miserable.  Because I'll be following God's plans instead of my own.  I won't be fighting him to do the things that I want to do instead of the things that he's called me to do.

So where do I see myself in 10 years?  No clue.  I'm trusting God for that one.

Some things never change...and some change more slowly than you want them to.

Trust, man.

It's all about trust.

Seriously!  The same issues that have been plaguing me 6 months ago are still plaguing me now.  6 months ago I wrote a blog about my trust issues.  And here they are, still slapping me in the face when I think about it.  I find it so easy to tell others what to do, how to trust God, and yet I never take the same advice myself.  I struggle every day with HOW to trust God.

It just seems so much easier to trust people.

Scratch that.  It seems so much easier to trust myself.

I am constantly reliable.  I know what expectations to set of myself that I can live up to.  I always show up when I need me.

There's that part in my brain that goes, "WAIT! God does that too!  God shows up when you need him!"

Then my tiny, cynical heart says, "Oh yeah?  Where was he two years ago when your life was falling apart?  Where was he when you were so desperately lonely?  Where is he now that your childhood home is being taken away?"

Trust, man.

I know in my head that God knows what he's doing.  He's reliable.  He shows up.  It's my heart that's a different story.  I think my problem is I'm waiting for God to do something big.  I want tangible proof.  Like Gideon.

You know that judge guy.

With the guys lapping up water like dogs.

Yeah, him.

Gideon sees the angel of the Lord, who says, "I am with you."

Gideon, instead of falling on his face and freaking out, says, "Oh yeah?  If God was really with us, why is all this bad stuff happening in our land?  Why have you abandoned us?"

To which the Lord says, "With the strength you have, I am sending you to fix that stuff.  I am with you."

Gideon: "Prove it.  I need a sign that you're really who you say you are."

So Gideon makes an offering.  He brings it to the angel of the Lord.  The angel of the Lord sets it on FIRE.  Right in front of Gideon.  Gideon sees it with his own eyes.  Then he falls on his face and freaks out.

Then he follows the Lord's instructions for a while, building offerings to the Lord, tearing down altars to Baal.

But later in the story, Gideon starts to wonder.  He starts to lose his trust.  He doesn't really think God can deliver him and the Israelites from the bad stuff that's happening to them.  So what does he do?

He asks God for another sign.

And God gives it to him.

One night, Gideon goes out and puts a fleece on the ground.  He asks God, "Hey, if you're really there and you're really going to do what you promised, make it so that in the morning, the fleece is covered in dew, but the ground around it is dry."

And it happened.

You'd think that Gideon would be impressed.  He'd be like, "Hey!  God is here!  He showed up!  Let's get this party started!"

Nope.

He says, "Let's try this once more.  Tomorrow, let the fleece be completely dry, and the ground around it be covered in dew."

And again, God does it.

Gideon gets not one, not two, but THREE signs from God that he's there and will do what he promised.  It takes him three tries to get this trusting thing down.

I think most of us would be happy with just one sign.

And maybe God does work like that for some people.  Maybe they get clear proof that God is there and that he's reliable and will do what he's promised.  But it hasn't worked that way for me.

It's easy to tell others, "God has a plan for you."

My favorite analogy is the lantern one.  You're walking down a path at night while carrying a lantern. The lantern only lights up the step in front of you and the step behind you.  You can't see the entire path ahead, just a little bit at a time.  But you've got to trust that the path is there and that the path is leading where it's supposed to go.

It's hard to trust that God knows what he's doing, especially in the midst of the bad stuff in life.  Is God ever going to tell me why my childhood home is being taken away?  Probably not.  Am I going to get a clear sign that he knows what he's doing?  Probably not.

And yet.

He still calls us to trust.  In Jeremiah 29:11 God says, "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

Now, maybe I'm reading it wrong.  But nowhere in that verse does it say that I, Beth, get to be privy to those plans.  God knows the plans, I don't.  It doesn't say "I know the plans I have for you, and here they are and here is a detailed map of how you're going to get there, and you will prosper and not be harmed and you have a hope and a future, see?  It's right here on this map I made for you."

Nope.  It doesn't say that.

It says GOD knows.  And God is so much bigger than my problems and your problems and everyone's problems.

Trust, man.  God knows what he's doing.

Aaaaand....I'm a slacker.

My mother has been bugging me to write on this thing since Christmas.

Oops.

So hello there!  (Hi Mom - I'm writing again!)

It seems that I only write when I have something pressing on my mind, a deep theological issue that needs to be addressed.  And I think that maybe if I struggle with it, other people are struggling with it too.  Today's issue: Trust.

Turns out, I have trust issues.

It's not that I don't trust other people (although that can sometimes happen).  I don't trust God.  Like ever.

That's kind of a problem.

Here's how I figured this out.  I obsess about my future ALL the time.  Seriously.  All the time.  I don't think I know how to live in the present.  I love making plans, I love figuring my life out.  When I think about the future, I also think about the future relationship that I want to have with my spouse.  And, as mentioned previously (in another post), relationships are my idol.  Or to clarify, the desire for a relationship is my idol.  In church, our pastor talked about having a false positive.  A false positive is something that seems good that you think will make your life better and fix all your problems.

My false positive - same as my idol.  Relationships.  I think that being in one is going to fix my problems.  So why do I have this as my false positive?

I don't trust that God is ever going to give me a relationship, because it's been so long since I've been in one.  I'm going on 6 years without a relationship (it hurts my heart a little to write that).  I've been desperately lonely for 6 years, and God hasn't done anything to change it.  A relationship would solve all my problems.  I wouldn't be lonely anymore.  I wouldn't have to worry about the future so much.

I don't trust God, because I don't believe that he is enough for me.  I feel like he's holding back from me, withholding what I want.  I don't think that he will give me the desires of my heart, because he hasn't in the past.

But here's the thing: if I trust God, if I TRULY trust him, he will either give me the desires of my heart, or change those desires so that I won't even feel the lack of the original desire. (Thank you, Sarah, for those wonderful words of wisdom.)

Unfortunately, there's no 12-step program to trusting God.  I know.  I looked.  Additionally, trusting God doesn't happen overnight.  I tried that too.  You can't just pray, "God, let me trust you, Amen."  It's a process.  A gradual one that is probably going to be painful.

So for those of you reading this who are struggling with this as well, my advice is as follows (and please note, I'm not an authority on the issue):

 While there is no 12-step program to trusting God, there are a few things you can do.

1.  Figure out why God is trustworthy.  Here's two reasons (and there are many more!):
        a.  He's our creator.  He knows us inside and out.  Just check out Psalm 139.
        b.  He loves us.  He loves us enough to die for us.  He loves us enough that even though we're             sinners, the lowest of the low, he still died for us to save us from an eternity without him.

2.  Figure out what you need to let go of to trust him.  For me, it's letting go of the desire for relationships.  Let me give you a Biblical example: Abraham.  God told Abraham that he was going to have a son in his old age, and through that son he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky.  So God gives Abraham a son, Isaac.  Abraham loves Isaac so much.  He thought he and Sarah would never have kids, so for God to give him a son in his old age is just so completely wonderful and he cannot imagine ever giving up his child.  Until God asks him to.  God says to Abraham, take Isaac up to this place that I'm going to show you, and sacrifice him to me.  At this point, Abraham's probably freaking out.  And although Genesis never tells us exactly what's going on in Abraham's head, he's probably thinking, "Wait, God.  You said you were going to bless me through this child.  And now you're asking me to kill him?  You're taking away what you promised you would give me?"  But Abraham had to trust God.  He had to trust that even if he killed his own son, God wouldn't back out on his promise.  He didn't know how God was going to do it, he just trusted that God would do it.  So Abraham does it.  He takes his son, puts him on the altar, and is THISCLOSE to sacrificing Isaac when God stops him.  God says, "Okay, you have shown me that you love me more than your own son.  Your trust in me is greater than your love for earthly things, and I'm going to bless you in ways that you can't even imagine."  Abraham had to let go of his love for Isaac and trust God.

3.  Figure out how to make God the Lord of your life.  People use the metaphor of putting God in the drivers' seat.  Hey, if that works, run with it.  Here's a verse that I've found extremely helpful from Romans 14:18, "Your task is to single-mindedly serve Christ" (this is from the Message.  Yes, I'm a seminary student, and I'm supposed to hate the Message, but if it helps me look at and understand the Bible in new ways, I'm going to use it.).  In everything that I do, I need to ask, is this serving Christ?  Does this conversation serve Christ?  Does this relationship serve Christ?  Is what I'm thinking serving Christ?  If it is, then I will continue on.  If not, then I won't do it, because it's not going anywhere.  I think that as long as I'm doing that, the trust will come.  Abraham served God, and as a result, trusted that he was going to fulfill his promise.  I think God will do the same for me.

That's not to say that I'm going to be awesome at this.  I'm not.  I'm going to continually have to identify my desires that are getting in the way of trusting God.  I will have to ask every single day if every single thing I do is serving Christ.  This isn't going to happen overnight.  And there are days when I'm not going to want to do it.  But I know that if I do, God's going to give me so much more than I ever expected.

So Mom, you asked for a blog post.  Hope this met your expectations:)

Also, this is the first time I've told people other than my family about this blog.  If you're not my family, be gentle.  I don't do well with criticism (maybe that deserves it's own blog post).