I realized this morning how poorly I deal with stress. It wasn’t a total surprise actually, but acknowledging a problem tends to shed more light on it. So I sat down at my desk and read Psalm, I don’t know why it popped into my head, but it did, so I turned in three different translations to Psalm 130. And the Holy Spirit spoke life into my situation.
The psalmist cries to the Lord out of “the depths.” This is the opposite of what I do when I’m in whatever the equivalent of depths is in my life. I go silent, quiet, AWOL. I shut down and try to reason my way by sheer willpower. I don’t cry out to the God who saves, rather I turn inward, trust in my own strength and sink further and further into the depths.
And it’s wrong. It’s so far from how I should react in these situations. The Message (which I may or may not be liking more these days) says in verses 3-4 “if you, God, kept records of wrongdoings who would stand a chance? As it turns out, forgiveness is you habit, and that’s why you’re worshipped.” I’ve been sinning. I’ve been overwhelmed by the reality that life is not always for me and I’ve selfishly trusted my own ability to fix that “problem” instead of releasing it to God and as this Psalm encourages, to wait on his deliverance and loving kindness.
So I’m stressed. I’m broken. I, I, I. All these problems are about me, but the world is not. But I’m crying out. Asking for deliverance; waiting on God’s abundant redemption. He made me and he loves me, stress factory and all. I don’t know where my life is headed. Sometime I wonder if I’m cut out for anything greater than trudging along and “getting by.” But Jesus seems to suggest that I am. That I was worth suffering and dying for. That my dreams are birthed in the passions and desires he has enflamed in my heart. So my mouth will cry out. I will praise God from the depths of despair and the swells of my stress. He is good. He is faithful. He will deliver me from the depths.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Existential Musings
Every once in awhile, when I’m left alone with my thoughts, they scare the heck out of me. Especially when I start thinking about existence, the nature of being. I’m not a philosophy major, and I haven’t read a lot about it, but when I think about the fact the somehow a consciousness exists within what essentially amounts to a bag of flesh, bones, sinews, nerves, blood and a lot of other junk, my mind is blown. What is my body apart from the “person” that exists in it? I am it, or am I in it? Who is Michael La Farge of Roseville, CA apart from the body that forms the limits of his existence? And likewise, who is God, the God of the Bible, who exists outside the constraints of a physical form? When I think about that I realize just how incredibly low Jesus stooped in the Incarnation. Honestly, it’s easier to think about football.
So my mind is already melting a little, and then I think about my girlfriend being a similar collection of molecules and atoms (granted they are very well put together) and I wonder, who is she in relation to me? How is it that me, what ever that is, loves, whatever that is, her, whatever she is? Something about her existence causes me in my isolated, individual consciousness to care more about what happens to her then to me, at least some of the time that’s the case. And there are 7 billion other individual people who are separated from me by their bodily existence, but connected to me via our status as God’s creation. Once again, mind blown out the back of my head. It’s like listening to Coldplay live; it’s making me question everything.
And the result is, when I really get into one of these existential funks, an incredible amount of humility. I’m getting smarter all the time. I learn new things every day and I realize I’m pretty good at what I do intellectually. Not great, but not bad either. But when I think about the fact that I’m alive, and that there is assumedly some reason for me to be here, I’m just humbled by the absurdity and complexity of it. When I dwell on it for too long I think, “Crap, now I might have to write about this.” Or get PhD in philosophy. But for now I’ll settle for being amazed by it.
On: May 17, 2012
At: Home
Listening to: Coldplay Pandora Station
So my mind is already melting a little, and then I think about my girlfriend being a similar collection of molecules and atoms (granted they are very well put together) and I wonder, who is she in relation to me? How is it that me, what ever that is, loves, whatever that is, her, whatever she is? Something about her existence causes me in my isolated, individual consciousness to care more about what happens to her then to me, at least some of the time that’s the case. And there are 7 billion other individual people who are separated from me by their bodily existence, but connected to me via our status as God’s creation. Once again, mind blown out the back of my head. It’s like listening to Coldplay live; it’s making me question everything.
And the result is, when I really get into one of these existential funks, an incredible amount of humility. I’m getting smarter all the time. I learn new things every day and I realize I’m pretty good at what I do intellectually. Not great, but not bad either. But when I think about the fact that I’m alive, and that there is assumedly some reason for me to be here, I’m just humbled by the absurdity and complexity of it. When I dwell on it for too long I think, “Crap, now I might have to write about this.” Or get PhD in philosophy. But for now I’ll settle for being amazed by it.
On: May 17, 2012
At: Home
Listening to: Coldplay Pandora Station
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)