I think that's it.
Actually I am OK. If I had to be any of the above I think it would be busy, but mostly I'm frustrated at still not being online!
I wasn't sure I was going to write a blog as I am only on the internet 'cause I fancied going for a late night walk, then I though I'm going past the maths department so why not take my laptop and make the most of the 24/7 wifi (or whiffee should I say Darryl) connection as I hadn't checked my mail in a while (haven't quite worked out how to do remote webmail access for my email address without following the link on my laptop). So I am here sitting on a cold step praying I don't get piles and wondering what I really should be doing, if I could work out God's mind exactly.
Maybe deciding for myself?!
That is one of them things about Christianity. Looking to God for all the answers. I became really sure that God was totally in control of it all and had an ideal plan for me. Then I realised that I had taken the whole biblical stance and seen it as a way to not have to make any decisions. Classic giving up control to someone more powerful than me because I was afraid to be strong for myself. So then when I realised that God isn't going to explicitly tell me how to spend every spare minute of my day the panic of getting things wrong really came along. That is what once upon a time stopped me from being able to choose meals in restaurants (I still struggle with that a bit but believe me, if you saw me before you'd realise that's nothing!) and disabled me from walking down the street without about 6 different tics or compulsive traits.
I really struggled with control. It's ironic that I looked externally to people that could take control of my life so I didn't have to then I would struggle internally with the lack of control that I had. Self control is a huge issue in Christianity - it surprises me how many people struggle with it and don't even realise - but I don't think that is where I am going today.
Today it is about using God as a way to diminish responsibility for our own lives. Like by praying in the morning we no longer have to make plans for the day it will all fall together.
This is a hard thing for me to grapple with. Partly 'cause a lot of the time cool God-incidences do happen. Thursday all I did was bump into people that I seemed "supposed" to spend time with and before I knew it it was evening and I had redeveloped old relationships, made a fabulous new friend and met loads of people I felt I should pray for. Today I found myself wondering up Gloucester road late afternoon, all the shops were shutting I was miles from my car and I was like "What am I doing here?". Then I bumped into someone from church that had gone a different way home than usual (and was annoyed at himself for it) who had been walking around all day saying "What do you want to say to me God?". I ended up giving him apparently really sound advice which can't have been from me and we both went home feeling like it was supposed to happen.
But it isn't necessarily always like that. I have also had times where I have gotten so worked up by what I should and shouldn't do that I have totally overlooked taking control and making my own mind up - wanting God to take the burden of choice away and ensure I do not make a mistake, then feeling lost if He isn't obviously there. Hating the feeling of purposelessness for even a minute, like life is about what we are fulfilling and forgetting that actually I am quite small in the scheme of things, that God has told me exactly what does and doesn't glorify Him and that today, right now, it doesn't matter too much as long as I aim to please.
All too often the temptation is to look at every minute situation and try and see what God is doing in it. A classic Christian thing is to say "maybe God is trying to tell me something". Like when I was looking for my iPod before I came out for a walk and couldn't find it I thought "well maybe God wants me to pray or listen or something and so is stopping me". That is pretty crazy though because for one thing if I was really adamant about listening to music this evening I would have just said to myself "clearly Satan doesn't want me to listen to worship songs as I walk along" because that would have suited me. As though everything has to have some kind of spiritual significance.
Which TOTALLY negates our own responsibility for life. Not everything comes to us with a quick prayer and waiting. Sometimes we have to make a choice.
Like if God wants to talk to me quietly, or just have me spend time with him, having my iPod wouldn't change that. My choice to listen would be the deciding factor for if it happened - I have to make the effort, I have to WANT it. I like having music on as I walk, I like getting absorbed in it and avoiding the mundane route I take everyday. I put Christian music on my iPod so that I feel less bad about the escapism, but perhaps it would be a good opportunity to let Him in. Afterall, while Tim Hughes is fabulous, he is but a fallible image of The Almighty.
This kind of stuff for me is a nightmare. One of my favourite things about becoming a Christian (Jesus aside) was the idea that I never again had to worry about choice or getting things wrong. Or so I thought. Surely with God in control, someone that has my best interests at heart AND knows how to fullfill them, things might be hard but they would always be Right. Right? The realisation that I still have input and responsibility and thus the potential for failure sucked ass. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'Human Error'.
The freedom to mess up was, and still is, scary. The thing is though, no matter what mistakes we make He is able and willing to bring great stuff out of them, 'cause God is never going to give you up, never going to let you down, never going to run around and desert you.
I was going to be lazy and upload an old poem, turns out I found more than enough to say! Night x
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