The Post With No Name

I had someone comment to me privately after one of my blog entries, "So when are you going to write about yourself instead of all this god talk?" My response was, "How are you so sure all of this God talk isn't me?" I write what's on my mind, and God is on my mind a lot and certainly not in a Sunday School teacher/Ladies Bible Study kind of way. I struggle with faith. I question God. I wait for answers. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I keep on waiting. I reject most "religious traditions" because I find them automatic rather than authentic. I grow weary of dogma presented as doctrine. I used to become angry with people who are at every church service, putting on piety with their Sunday dresses and suits, judging others who do not do the same. Now, I pity them. I yearn to interact with people who are genuinely and authentically pursuing a relationship with God, who are real with their flaws and imperfections and not merely confident in doing what they have been told to by others. I claw my way out of ruts of religious rules and seek alternate paths. I read. I think. I meditate. I whip out my Zen Christianity and risk being looked at like I just sprung a unicorn horn and wings at best.


Yet in the midst of my uncertainties, God makes His presence known to me in the way I can best understand and believe. I get asked, "Just who exactly is Jesus?" and I talk about the cross with a passion that defies my doubt, even when I'm in the midst of confessing it! I see people weep at the realization that Jesus IS God's love and embrace Him with a hunger and thirst for a relationship with a Savior whom they just met, and I see lives transformed because of that relationship. I marvel at how their faith seems so much stronger than my own, even while knowing that it's not their faith or my faith but God's faith imparted to us both. I realize I have become the very people with whom I once became angry, and I pity myself for taking for granted the most precious and life-changing gift I ever have been given. I walk around consumed with plans, contingencies, and ruminations, all the while knowing I could simply be still and know that He is God.


I realize just how happy I am that I am not the Holy Spirit, so I don't have to convict anyone. The Trinity has no vacancy that I need to fill! What freedom and empowerment! All I have to do is tell my story, not just the good parts but all of it (well, at least most of it), and trust that God will take it from there. I don't have to convince anyone; I simply have to admit that I struggle with being convinced, too. I don't have to hear anyone's decision; I simply have to acknowledge my own difficulty with making one daily. I don't have to point anyone anywhere; I just have to get out of the way. I don't have to defend God; I just have to love and be loved by Him...even when I wonder if He and His love are real. My questions do not change His love for me...they enhance it because I am being as genuine as I can be...for now...