I am Wandering Will
Who am I? What defines me? What am I doing? Where am I going? What is my purpose? How did I get here? What is the point? Why am I?
There are multiple occasions in my life, where it felt like God took the carpet under my life and ripped it away. Time where I have fallen flat on my face, dazed, and the only thing I can do is look around and say what happened. Well this happened to me at my world race launch. I am only now being able to pick myself up off the floor this time though.
This time He took something from me that I never would’ve expected, He took away my identity. You know it’s funny, we as people don’t see that we are falling, until we slam into the ground. We have to wait till there is nowhere to go but up, till we actually look down. That was me, how am I supposed to begin to change, when I was perfectly happy with where I was. I was comfortable, and thought I had a grip on myself.
Why would God take me out of a place where I was perfectly happy and comfortable with myself, and throw me into uncertainty? To answer this question, I am going to nerd out, and go all kung fu master on ya’ll. If a cup is full of water, how can I fill it with tea? I was sure comfy with my life being water, but God has so much more planned for me. I had things that I based who I was on that didn’t matter at all, and they filled my cup, and blocked the potential of who God is calling me to be.
I am now filled with passions that I never had before, and they are there because I let go of things that were not supposed to be a part of who God made me. I have begin to let myself wonder and wander again. I even wrote a blog awhile back about the dangers of wondering.
Back when I was younger, I went to a little church called Northwest Community Church in the village of Malcolm, Nebraska. It was a smaller congregation of believers in the Berean denomination. I had a habit of wandering through the halls of that little church searching for adventure. All I remember about it, is I saw every opportunity for adventure, and sought it out. I was obviously noticed by adults, and I was given the nickname, Wandering Will.
When I heard this as a teenager, I grew to resent the name. I thought it was an attempt to look at me as if I were still some little kid. Now I have grown to resent my own resentment. I miss the little kid I once was, with adventure being at every corner, mysteries behind every door. I don’t know where he went, but I want to be that way again. In the words of the Pixar movie UP, Adventure is out there!!!
Who knew this would be what God would be putting on my heart, a little boy I used to be. I have grown into a man, but now as I stand on the edge of the rest of my life, the only thing that I hear God telling me, is to wander. I spent years building masks, and fake identities around myself, but when all of those were taken away, all that was left, is a now man, who has questions, and sees mysteries around, and the longing to wander.
How in the world can I sit still through life when there is so much around me. God made man in the wilderness, and in the wilderness, that is where we find God. Don’t believe me? Go do some research in your bible about where Jesus went to spend time with the Father.
This past month has been very hard for me, because I lost sight of myself. I would look in the mirror and see a stranger. But today I realized that who I was never left me, I had simply covered it up with years of lies, years of acting, years of boredom. Thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart, He returned to me something that had been lost for years, my identity.
Now I can say with confidence, I am Wandering Will.
