allow me to be vulnerable with you for a bit. i want to share with you something that i struggle with a lot....probably moreso now than ever....or maybe i have just begun to recognize the struggle...in any case, here it is: i seriously struggle to serve God when it's not glamorous....the lights come up, the sound explodes and for the next 2 hours i can mask my insecurities. i can be whoever i want to be. i can paint a picture of the me that i want you to see....you don't have to know me and i don't have to know you other than to connect with you briefly enough to show you that i noticed you were there. i noticed you were there and i made sure that if you knew nothing else about me, you knew, if only for those two hours, that i follow Christ.
...and then....after the last note is played and long after the crowd is gone....i take off my mask. i lay down the me that you met and i crumble. a million questions arise in my heart and i look to myself for answers to these questions that i can't even begin to understand...i question my purpose, my plans, my goals....and i blame God for not immediately answering me....
i tell myself it's ok to wrestle with God (and i believe it is) - but my wrestling turns into pouting and pointing the finger at God and saying..."YOU told me YOU would carry me, you told me if i called, you would answer!...etc." - the truth of the matter is....i never asked Him.....anything.
this struggle has consumed me lately...and i will take a step further into deeper authenticity and tell you exactly why....
i don't feel it - i don't feel Him near...and that is a frightening thing. i know that He is here...even in the smallest and mundane moments of my life. my struggle is having faith and believing it. today my heart was broken with a passage from isaiah because i know that it is me...the verse essentially says that you (being me) will try to do this on your own until eventually you will end up all alone....that is how i feel in the simple moments of my life...alone
when you strip away the lights, the stage, the people, and the music and you get behind the masks that i wear, this is me.....afraid and alone....searching for the best way to sift through all of the mess that this world has to offer and to put my eyes solely on the author of my faith....and not just when the world is watching....but when mine is the only voice within 100 miles.
