I was listening to Divine Romance the other day in the Tacoma and it was the first time i didn't get chills.
When i think of romance i think of a man and a woman. I think of physicality. I had a hard time thinking about God in romantic terms when Natalie first introduced me to the concept back in high school. It just didn't feel write. But i came to understand what she was talking about with time, and the song by Phil Wickham was excellent when i heard it for the first time.
Although thinking about it now i feel like perhaps i got stuck there with God. To put it brashly, i was using God for the sex. Instead of taking what he was filling me up with, the light and the warmth of his presence and spirit, and using it as he commanded me, i kept it for myself. I returned to him day after day for the self-satisfaction, for the high. I wasn't taking it to the "nations." I wasn't taking it to the hungry, the wretched, the poor.
I have been hiding my lamp under a bowl. I feel i have been taking God and using Him to propagate my own name, instead of giving Him the glory. If you were to ask my co-workers about me, they would most likely say i am a good guy, a hard-worker, a trustworthy person. But they wouldn't be able to tell you that i am a follower of Christ, a child of God, a disciple of love. Just that i did well by them and never crossed anyone.
I like to talk big. I like to shoot off my mouth. But like Aley pointed out, words are very empty without deeds. Sure, i did a lot at New Hope Mililani. I was involved in a lot of ministries. But it is easy within the security of the four walls of the church. I talk about being bigger than the institution of the church as a building, but am i bigger than the structure? I don't think i am. I think i found a comfort zone in Hawaii, a place where i was secure and could do my thing with out any worry of consequence. People loved me and i loved me. My ego was fat, and i liked it. But when i lost those safe walls, and really had to leave my crib, what came of it? Nothing.
For a little while i felt like this was Satan speaking lies to me. Trying to diminish things God had accomplished through me. But i know this not to be true. I know God gave me a greater calling, and i threw it back in His face. I decided i liked my comfortable faith, restricted to the confines i was use to, and didn't want to move on beyond that. And so God has left me at this point. He has left me here and is waiting for me to pick back up with Him.
Now, the hope would be that after writing this post, after spilling my feelings and emotions, and realizing what i have done, that i would start back up again. But i don't see that happening. Honestly, i see myself continuing on as i have. And that sounds dark, but it also sounds true to me. These rants tend to be like movies and books, like entertainment. We enjoy the stories, and the power they have to move us, but do we really allow them to change us? Do we really let the inspiring tales spur us on to action, or do we as consumers just rape them for their pleasure? I think i am a rapist.
This year holds many promises for me, many opportunities and advantages. I really do not know if any of it is in-line with the will of God. I frankly do not know how to even determine God's will. My old superstitions about callings and closed doors have been exposed. And so i cannot really say that i know that what i am doing is what God would have me do. But perhaps i am being too definite with what lies under the umbrella of God's will. I don't know, you tell me, as long as i am obeying His commands, as long as i am being the Church as outlined in the New Testament, am i obeying His will? Or is there more to it than that? Does my every deed have to be supernaturally ordained? Does God have to speak to me from the heavens and say, "Kevin. Today you shall walk to the store and buy a gallon of milk."? I guess that leads me to the question, which i asked Suzie before, does God's will pertain to every part of my life? Or only some parts? Because i think you all would probably laugh at the idea of waiting for God to tell me to buy milk for my cereal before actually going to the store and getting it. I feel i have been told, "That is what the Holy Spirit is for, for the little parts of your life." Although i still believe that the Holy Spirit leaves the milk buying decisions up to me. But what about where i am going to live, and what i am going to do, and who i am going to marry? Am i suppose to wait for explicit directions from God? Or the Holy Spirit? Or is it like milk, am i suppose to figure it out on my own based on what i know He would have for my life? He wants me to be healthy, i buy milk. He wants me to spread His glory, i marry a girl who will come alongside me in accomplishing this.
What about heaven? Does it really exist? When Jesus says "Today you will be with me in paradise," what the heck was he referring to? Because he never mentions heaven anywhere in his teachings. He only talks about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and the resurrection. And even when Paul talks about the resurrection later in his letters it sounds like a physical thing. Not the spiritual soul rising to heaven, but, like Jesus, the physical body being raised from the dead and restored to how it was meant to be before the fall of man. It sounds like when Jesus returns that the earth will return to how it was in the beginning, without death and decay. But no where does the Bible talk about everyone going to heaven where God is, other than in Revelations, which is all prophecy anyways. Not to mention how in the Old Testament it sounds like no one even considers there to be life after death. This confuses me greatly.
I could go on about the lack of the miraculous in modern times and other things, but i am le tired, and simply ranting now, so i will leave you guys here...good night.
