Middle school is the worst time ever.You are one of your worst selves during those grades. I’m surprised anyone ever makes it out alive. Those three years are full of acting caddy, constant judging, and worst of all giving and receiving the silent treatment.
It’s strange that for quite a few years of our lives our response when others made us angry was to just not respond at all. But not in the “bigger person sort of way where I’ll let it go”. No. Instead, if you made me angry I immediately and quite obviously pretended that you no longer existed. I’d get frustrated with my friends and try my best to just pretend they weren’t there.
Well it’s feeling like Throwback Thursday because I’ve again become queen of giving the silent treatment, and my newest target is God.
For a while I thought I was feeling numb in my faith. I thought the spark just wasn’t there anymore. But now I’m realizing that that light that I thought was just a little spark is rapidly growing into a violent flame, and so I am being oh-so-mature and just pretending it isn’t there at all. I’m realizing that my faith isn’t just this little exciting spark that occasionally shows up on Sundays and in some of my friendships. Instead, my faith is this rapid fire that’s trying to engulf my whole life in its flames.
You’d think that I’d be excited about this, even ecstatic. So many of those I look up to let the fire loose on their lives. They want God’s presence and His desires to burn in every part of their existence-and how cool is that(or hot?)!
Well, God being present in every part of your day every day is really incredible sounding until you realize that God doesn’t want your days to look like how you’d expect. God doesn’t want my fire to look like my friends’ fires. Their faith is strong and God is pushing them to work hard to continue down a pretty clear path. Meanwhile, I’m quickly realizing that God does not and is not going to have my life look anything like theirs, and He definitely hasn’t shown me a path.
At first while I was realizing this I would think, “this is great, I don’t have to be normal. I don’t have to work for a degree and spend my years in an office with a family in Houston”. I was so ready to dive into whatever plans God had for me and my life.
The more I think about just trying to do whatever God wants, and the more I think about letting God set my life ablaze with His presence, the more I freak out. The more I get frustrated.
Why can’t I just go to college, get an internship, volunteer occasionally, get a job in Houston, marry a nice boy, settle down into a nice house, and just go to a weekly bible study? God, Your spark was exciting and new, but Your fire is too much. Your plans are too scary. They’re too big. They’re too far from comfort.
And so. I’m giving You the silent treatment.
It’s been working for a while. I just work and hang out with friends and I ignore the big elephant in the room-God. I pretend I’m going along just like everyone else.
But now training camp is coming, and I know God is going to come knocking. He’s going to come barging in, guns blazing(ha). And I’m trying so hard to pretend that isn’t going to happen. I just want to get to do what’s comfortable. I just want a comfortable Christian’s fire of faith.
I know I’ll grow weary of trying to ignore You. I’ll remember why I want You in every part of my life. And I know You’ll remind me that Your fire won’t be bad. Your plans are good. Better than anything I can imagine.
I dream safe; But You Lord, You play with fire.
X
