The Bigger Purpose

Once upon a time I applied to grad school.  Like, once upon a time, two weeks ago.  To one grad school.  My top choice grad school.  So, I sent my application out, sat back and waited patiently.  For two weeks. Then (and only then) I got a wild hair to Google, “Chances of getting into an MFA Creative Writing program.”  Basically, the news was that, had I applied to Harvard medical school or Harvard Law, I would have stood a better chance. 

That awkward moment when you realize you've been painfully naive.  Why or how I did not quite understand the low probability of acceptance, I don't know.  How did I not know this when three years ago I chose English Lit as my major - the end goal in mind, grad school. 

I have no Plan B.  Thus far, in my life, I've found nothing I want to do other than write.  And yes, I can write without a Master's, but I can't teach without one.  And I suppose that teaching was really already my Plan B.  Plan A, originally being, to study what excited me for as long as possible while honing my craft.

The bigger point in all of this , the reason I'm writing about it, really doesn't have much to do with the somewhat horrifying notion that I better come up with a backup plan for life.  No, the thing, triggered is the "God thing".  The God thing that has tormented my mind for life.  

Praying last night only for His will, I found myself in Eeyore -esque  fashion bemoaning that, "It's alright.  God probably doesn't want me in grad school."  Can you hear the long, slow, pitiful tone here?  "He has it reserved for someone else.  It's okay."  

Then another voice of every prosperity preacher I've ever had the misfortune of listening to,  melded into one, starts yelling at me like a gym teacher, "God wants you to be expectant!  That's what pleases Him most!  Name it!  Claim it!  Let's go! "  I'm panting and that voice is shaking its head, warning that if I don't get in, it's just proof of my lack of faith.  Then, there sits God, arms crossed, waiting.  Waiting for my faith to pronounce itself.  He's surveying all applicants and those with the most faith win.  That's one version.  Another is where the one with the most virtue wins.  Or whoever prays the most.  Take your pick.  

With me, it always comes back to this fear - that there's a popularity contest with God, and I'm at the bottom of his favorites list.  He sits judge of a pageant and we parade in with talents and testaments of purity.  First place takes the prize.  Yep, God's gonna give whatever I want to someone more deserving.  And furthermore, shame on  me for even wanting anything.

I immediately run down the procession of unanswered prayers in my life.  A few, I can see now, were for my good , but several still hang in the balance of all enigma, placed in a category labeled, "You'll find out when you get to Heaven - Dont Waste Your Sorrows:!"

I'm well aware my theological understandings are just a little messed up.  So, I start chanting the Serenity Prayer and remind myself not that He will give me the desires of my heart but that all things work together for those who love Him.  Then I worry I don't love Him enough.  I stifle that thought and concentrate on the 'work together' part and begin sharpening my trusting skills.  I make mental note that one purpose in all of this might be the awareness I'm experiencing on this "God thing" that I had though I had grown away from.  

I joke with myself that my naivete actually substantiates the fact of my childlike faith...and that has to increase my points.  Returning to a less serious view of myself, I tell myself, Well, this will just be my practice run.  

I turn the radio way up when Alanis Morissette's Hand in my Pocket plays and I choose to believe that.  That right there is God speaking to me.  That's the God I get.  The God I love.  The one who says to me, "...everything's going to be fine, fine, fine, 'cause I've got one hand in my pocket and the other one is giving a high five..."

Highest Purpose

Have you ever wanted something and it wasn't a bad thing at all to want but you just weren't sure that it was in God's plan for you?

This is where I'm at right now.  Wanting.  And I can hear God whispering, "Calm down."  He isn't saying 'no'.  He's just telling me to relax into Him for now.

 I think.

And I read all my devotions and this message, sort of recurs in each one.

First, I read:  "Today, I will identify what I want and need; then, I'll be willing to let go of it.  I will devote my energy to living my life today....I will trust that what I want and need is coming to me.  I will let go of my need to control the details."

And I hear God say, "I will give you the desires of your heart, but for now I want you to focus on Me.  Am I not enough?"

Because I've been here before with God.  This place of release.

And then I read, "Beloved, 'Set your affections on things above' (the higher, spiritual things) 'and not on things below', (the lower, temporal things), and you will see how rich you are."
God Calling (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading): A Devotional Diary

And then the hard hitting Oswald Chambers writes, "Continually restate to yourself what the purpose of your life is.  The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness.  Nowadays we have far too many affinities, we are dissipated with them; right good, noble affinities which will yet have their fulfillment, but in the meantime God has to atrophy them....God is not an eternal blessing-machine for men."
My Utmost for His Highest - Deluxe (DELUXE CHRISTIAN CLASSICS)

Sigh.  I don't think the message could be much more clear.

I am realizing how I am an all or nothing kind of girl.  I set my sights on something and I run.  And God has to again and again pull me back.  To the moment.  The now.  Because I will take a goal or a dream or an opportunity or really anything and my mind is three years ahead of now, planning, envisioning, even worrying.  And I sacrifice these slivers of time that are precious and real.  Actually happening and God ordained.

So, I hear Him today.  Asking where my hope comes from.  If He's all I need.  If holiness, is my highest purpose, also.  If I trust.

And today, I am saying yes.  I do.  

At Spiritual Sundays

Stories

I hold inside myself stories untold.

The happenings thus far, simply characters and setting but the plot continues to unfold.

I have just figured this out.

What I have previously believed to be a story are merely chapters in the great novel of my life.  And though I will never right the next Great American Novel, my life will be my own version of this, as will yours.

Because I only have one life to live.  The thought following that is, "so you better get it right".  But I won't.  There will be things I miss, things I add which should have been left out.  The important thing is that I remember that I'm actually not the author.  He is.  I'll let him weave the words, create the climaxes and enter the hero because what I could put down would be not only unworthy of market but tragic.

So, I'll live each day on the page I'm at.  I can't peek ahead and I can't erase what's come.  I just trust.  Trust that He is the best storyteller who's ever been and He's writing mine.

Questions and Knowledge

The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you "come to terms with" only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will." -Ingrid Bengis 

I can suffocate under these mind vibrating questions.  And often I feel like that is the exact what's happening.


  I trend toward obsessiveness, wear it quite well.   My mind can picks up a thought and then cling. 


 The latest mania (and this is a recurring one) is with knowing something.  Figuring something out.  Identifying.  Picking apart, studying, making a specimen out of that which is not a species.


What I'm essentially doing is clamoring for God's job.  Committing that first ever sin.  And because I am not God, I'm becoming frustrated and fatigued. 


 I'm forgetting to trust.   No, rather,  I'm telling God, "I don't trust You.  I'll figure it out". 


 Except I can't.  And so I feel nutty.  And off-kilter and cluttered.  My mind won't shut up. 


 The bottom line is, some things are not for me to know. 


 Maybe I wouldn't be able to handle the knowledge.  Maybe I'd abuse it if I had it.  I don't know what I'd do but I have to believe there's a reason that God is allowing me to be in the dark on this one.