I think I realized I was in a rut about a week ago, but it's been going on for a month or so now. For me, a spiritual rut isn't even me staying away from prayer, God's word and church. I might not be feeling it, but I know better that. It's going through the motions without that fire lighting me up. On the surface, nothing is different, but on the inside everything is different.
I think that the breeding ground for ruts is comfort. The more comfortable we are, the easier it is to just get caught up in the motions. Spiritually, my life is comfortable. I work at a Christian school, where everyone at the very least pretends to love Jesus. We go to chapel once a week and staff devotions twice a week. Most of my friends here are Christians. I know all the right things to do, all the right things to say, and yet.....in my comfort, I've found emptiness.
There was a time when faith did not come so easily. When I really started pursuing Jesus, I was at my public university (right after my first summer working at a Christian summer camp). I didn't know any special Bible study techniques or even what most of the books of the Bible were really about. I didn't know how I felt about pre-trib, post-trib, young or old earth theory/didn't really know all of these high Christian theology things existed. It was at this time God was shaping who I was and who I would become.
During that time, there was no reason I had to study my Bible. I wasn't a missionary, I wasn't even primarily in a Christian circle, and no one told me what to do. (Or even if people did tell me what to do, I don't know that they would have told me to do that.) But at the same time, as I had watched God give life to others through this book over the summer at camp and saw how others searched it for their guidemap to life, I knew that I had to figure out what that book said. I knew I had to figure out how it applied to my life and why it should matter to me. For the next three years, I read and read. I would say studied, but at the time, I really don't know that I knew how to study anything. There was desperation there, because I knew that there was held life and life was what I needed above all. Since then I go through spells of being passionate and excited about the Word, but not as consistently as I once remembered.
I think that part of what was exciting in that struggle was making meaning out of the Words that God had spoken to me. Looking back, I don't know I always walked away with the right meaning, but man, did I wrestle with God to find things there and over the things I found there. Now as my understanding has gotten larger, sometimes I feel like there's just nothing to wrestle over anymore. Which is highly not true, but a 0-40 change is much more noticeable than the 40-50.
I think another thing that's changed is the people I have in my life. I used to have friends that really pushed each other to seek after the Lord together. People who I saw passionate about the things of the Lord and who challenged me to be so with both their words and deeds. Part of this was we just stood out so much from the watching world we were a part of. We really shone as the light and we ran with torches held high through the darkness, trying to share as much light as we could with those around us.
My second summer at camp I remember talking to one of my friends about this. She had grown up her whole life in a Christian bubble, being home schooled and then going to a Christian university. In this conversation (which has stuck with me for a few years), I remembered comparing our experiences to poodles and pitbulls. So many of the people I had worked with seemed like poodles. It seemed like their whole faith was easy, they always had Christian influences pushing them the right direction, they didn't have a lot of worldly influences trying to drag them down. It was them sitting in Jesus' lap and that was about it. (I do know there is a lack of full truth to that statement now, but this is what I believed at the time.) For me at my public university, with influences daily trying to pull me the wrong way, with not really knowing how to follow Jesus but fighting desperately to learn, I felt like a pitbull. I would fight and fight to try to get to know Jesus more and try to help those around me to know Jesus but it was hard. I didn't have a lot of knowledge or tools at my disposal. But man, it felt good to be fighting hard for Jesus.
Now, I think I'm becoming a pedicured little poodle. I'm cultured in Christian things and there's not a whole lot of fight left in me right now. As we worshiped in chapel this last week, I realized that and realized things need to change. Whether that's more boldly and courageously speaking for Christ at school (which totally is needed), or perhaps fleeing this too comfortable Christian bubble for the mean streets again, I don't know yet. But pray that I would again become a pitbull, fighting ferociously for my Jesus again.
Also sorry if I offended anyone in this post. I know we all have our own struggles that we need to fight and faith really isn't easy for anyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment