My day off.

This morning I woke up feeling very unsure. I wasn’t so sure as to what I was unsure of, but either way, there was a bit of discontent stirred up within me. It’s my two day off stretch and I needed to find things to do, to occupy my mind, but not so much that it caused the slightest bit of stress.

I went to the bookstore. Everytime I go, I vow to return more frequently. I’m a sucker for the smell of books plus the smell of overpriced coffee. There was a time where I’d read books often. During class, waiting for dinner, before bed, and in the middle of the night… Now I just read books to try and grasp a better understanding of my life which is seemingly flying by. Yes, I’ve got my Bible, but my being wants to hear another soul searching like I am, one who is a step ahead of their search. It’s a bit weird to admit, but within a few months, I’ve grown to trust Don Miller. I think it has a lot to do with his rambling style and how I can relate it to my rambling mouth. Every now and again, I’d like to think I say something worth saying like Miller does in his stories.

“Relationships aren’t the best thing, if you ask me. People can be quite untrustworthy, and the more you get to know them — by that I mean the more you let somebody know who you really are — the more it feels as though something is at stake. And that makes me nervous. It takes me a million years to get to know anybody pretty well, and even then the slightest thing will set me off. I feel it in my chest, this desire to dissociate.”

I have a temporary roommate for a few weeks. I also refer to this temporary roommate as my best friend. With all best friends come stories of trials but with those trials, a strengthening in relationship. We’ve gotten to know each other extremely well, but there are still things I probably wouldn’t tell her and even worse, vice versa. Is this an issue of trust? The fact that if we tell the truth to each other, something disastrous would occur, shattering the fragileness of the friendship? What is it that we’re afraid of? What is if that I’m afraid of? Why is it that a person longs to have relationships with others but at the same time scared to death that the relationship would go forward?

And it’s times like these that I see the parallel of me needing a relationship on earth as needing a relationship with my Heavenly Father. That’s a no-brainer, I guess. The hard part is putting that into action.

Anyway, that’s what happens when I get a day off. Time to think.

Tough cookies.

Yep. So it’s been awhile since I’ve posted, but it’s been awhile since I’ve had some free time for myself to sit and think about things. I wish I could say New Year’s came and went without a bang, but it definitely was an eventful night. Don’t you ever have those “inklings” that certain things would happen and you either 1) agree with these inklings or 2) disagree with these inklings. Sometimes you get these mini-inklings like knowing what someone may say word for word or that someone is about to walk through the door or give you a call. But sometimes these inklings are deeply rooted in our hearts; they come days in advance and are basically hovering over your head, tugging at your every being to make decisions now or eat the consequences later. Well, long story short, I decided to neither agree or disagree and just waited for the consequences to come.

I’m not sure if you could say I disobeyed God, but I feel that my inactions showed my lukewarm tendencies. However, through the bruises and cuts as well as the sharp words and wounded hearts, I felt that God was in control even though things seemed out of control. Things are still out of my control and it’s something I have to remind myself every day…

I am not in control.

I have responsibilities and there are consequences to all of my decisions, but ultimately, there is a plan much bigger than myself. When most people see that, they are scared. People don’t like to be out of control. Just ask all of my crazy screaming customers. They just hate knowing there are certain rules and regulations set that don’t conform to their liking. So when some people realize that God deals all the cards and they are dealt a bad hand, they become bitter. They start asking questions like “Why me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” That’s the problem. The use of “me” and “I.” The failure to realize there is a bigger picture than what we see and feel each day. The self-absorbed, self-centered notions we were basically born with. Me, me, me.

But we ALL have the choice to think bigger. We all hit the realization that maybe life is more than our own individual lives at least once in our lifetime. There are other hearts beating, other dreams and fears, and other lives than our own. And we can’t all be self-absorbed and self-centered. Chew on that for a second. I think the world would slowly implode if that were true. If God was our genie and we all got our wishes… As satisfying as having everything we wanted come true, I think life would become even moreso unsatisfying.

We have to trust the dealer. We have to think bigger. Life is more than what is happening to us, life is more than our time here on earth. God is more than the card dealer and knows that sometimes our wants and desires aren’t what’s best for us. He’s the one that created us, don’t you think that He’d know what we needed more than we do?

But that’s a tough cookie for some to handle. And to me, getting others to realize that is my tough cookie to chew on. Then, God pats me on the head and says, “You know what? I appreciate you trying to spread the Truth around, but you do have a tendency to muck up things, so just rely on Me a little bit.” And eventually, eventually that’s all we can do. Rely on Him.

Teach a man to fish again…

So after typing up a storm about trust, the following day I managed to temporarily lose my trustworthiness from someone.

It was strange. My first reaction was to try and cover up my mistake but it was clear that feelings had already been hurt. My second reaction was to retaliate and reverse the pointed finger. Thankfully, I reached a better reaction in confessing I had screwed up and asking for forgiveness. Sincerely, I asked for forgiveness.

I grew up with a parent whose finger was always pointed in every direction but his own. Well, I say “grew” but not much has changed. As far as I can remember, any and all responsibilities I could handle or had to figure out how to handle were put on my shoulders. I suppose this sped up my learning process, but I think, at the same time, I ended up eating the blame if anything was to ever go wrong. I had two choices. I could either fight back in the unfairness of a 10-year kid having to navigate the family through our first visit to San Antonio or I could do as I was told.

So I did as I was told.

Again, not much has changed. I think I have grown into a very obedient, yet passive person, often times susceptible to getting taken advantage of. I have a servant’s heart, but neglect to take care of it at times. But what could I have become if I had been stubborn growing up? Headstrong and outspoken, I’m sure. Characteristics that I sometimes wish I had… characteristics that might make me a more well-rounded leader. But I can’t imagine talking back to my parents and I can’t imagine fighting to my right to be right everytime.

There must be a happy medium. A time to admit your wrongs, but a time to admit you’re right. Being able to ask for forgiveness and being able to forgive someone. Being able to work things out but never compromising your beliefs.

Anyway. In other fun news, I was added onto someone’s RSS feed. That was pretty cool to know someone that actually knows what an rss feed is. And my songs were added to someone’s iPod today. That was kind of strange to know, but slightly cool at the same time. Ok, ok, I’ll admit it, I’m really honored to be in an iPod.

Teach a man to fish, and there’s no “I” in team.

So how do you teach someone to trust?

I’ve rambled to a few people about what I think about this and now I’m rambling here. Trust is kinda sorta like a house of playing cards. It takes awhile to set the foundation and that’s if you even want to bother trying to make the house in the first place. Then, it’s a lot of sweat and shaky hands. It takes a lot of work. But man, does that house look cool or not once you start running out of cards and start sitting back and smiling? Oh, but wait a minute. One wrong move and WHOOSH! No more house. Unless you built a good foundation, then maybe, just maybe, you don’t have to start all over. (Does that analogy work?)

Alright. We’ve settled the fact that trust takes a whole load of work to build up and one wrong move and we’re back to square one. Or even negative square one. But either way, how do we retrain ourselves to trust? Or if we were at fault, how do we earn back trust? To answer the latter, I think we need to answer the former.

We have to learn to trust someone before we can expect them to trust us. You have to pull the trigger first or chance waiting at the starting line with no one knowing when to launch forward. This first step, for most, is the hardest part. We were born dependent, but quickly we learn that the world is a tricky place full of tricky people and sometimes those tricky people are your friends. Sometimes the people that let you down the most are people who are near and dear to your heart and man, that hurts. So when we get back up and we’re given the choice to rebuild what was broken, we are naturally going to be hesitant. Questions, questions. Do I want to trust? How much will I trust? Why can’t I trust?

Hmm. I John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” We can safely change that to “We trust Him because He first trusted us.” Who doesn’t know the story of Adam and Eve? Who doesn’t know that God created them and then gave them all sorts of stuff to be in charge of. He gave them land. He gave them animals. And although we mucked that up, God still trusts us with the ultimate responsibility of loving Him and showing His love to others. He still trusts us. He still loves us.

What am I trying to say. I Cor 13 says love “always trusts.” We are not to lean on our own understanding, but to trust the Lord with all our heart. So, while we are not necessarily supposed to completely trust others, we are at least to exemplify the trustworthiness of the Lord to others by being trustworthy first. And then, perhaps, that person may learn to trust.

Oh my gosh, it is late and I will wake up and not understand a word of this.