If God’s plan for us is the best that there can be, then it should be safe to call it a plan for victory. I have found that many times, victory tastes more like defeat. It’s difficult to take it in stride and keep going. Harder still to fight to believe that, at the moment of disappointment, that such defeats bring us one step closer to victory, to God’s best for us. And it is a fight.
Fight we must, because it is commanded, but not only because it is commanded. I have a hard time thinking of God as more than task master and King. I struggle with the idea that God loves me deeply. Anybody who reads this blog can tell you that I talk about it often. I am trying to think about it correctly, that disappointment has its purpose. It is not on me to put my heart back together; not on me to change my will; not on me to bear better fruit. I but need to bend myself toward the light, and hope that God will do the sowing, the growing, and the reaping.
That is what I’m telling myself. I hope I’m not lying.
Yeah, you know what, I’m going to say it, and God willing this will be a very short post: if somebody’s telling people that so and so trial is very “hard” and really “humbling” and they can say that all with a sincere smile on their face, they’re probably not really struggling. It reminds me that we all like to make our problems bigger than they seem, most of the time so we can inflate ourselves and our reputations for being faithful, stalwart, and “godly” for being able to endure such trying times while maintaining a sharp and pristine smile.
Stop. When Job was undergoing his trial, he did not smile, he did not say, “I am getting screwed…BUT, you know, I’m so grateful for God giving me this trial.” When Christ was about to be crucified, He didn’t laugh about it or make merry toward its regard. He sweat blood and begged His Father that if there was any other way, let it be so. The fact that Christ ended that prayer with, “yet not my will but Yours be done” doesn’t change the intensity of his emotional and mental anguish.
It’s sort of like claiming that a workout was SUPER hard, even though you laughed throughout the whole time. Please. If it were that hard, laughter would be the last thing on your mind. What’s my point? There isn’t one, I just had to let it out that I think it’s annoying and disingenuous and belittles the people around you who suffer in silence because all their mind and heart is put to purpose of fighting through difficult times.
No, I’m not referring to myself.
Who ever knew that keeping a clean apartment could be such a pain in the ass? Seriously, mad props to every housewife and househusband that figured this crap out.
It’s so we can learn to pick ourselves up again, Bruce.
False.
We fall because we are fallen and imperfect and utterly incapable of anything but failure in the long run. But the question is and perhaps has always been: when you fail, what will you do?
Dudes at RGC are grinding it out, learning how to work out and take care of themselves with physical exercise. All masochist glee aside, I love to see them grow not only in physical fortitude, but in mental fortitude, the final hope being that when they can show themselves faithful in as small a thing as a hard work out, they will be more inclined to be faithful in a harder, spiritual thing.
I parrot the words of my coaches and teachers (with far less profanity, I’ll add) when I drill them. It’s only pain. If you don’t like it, just get it done faster. I can’t polish a turd. The goal is to push, to teach them push themselves to the limit, and to find that the limit is more of a glass ceiling. When you reach it, it moves further, and further, always taunting you to greater heights.
I love it, to see them learn it with their bodies, a deeper lesson than if I’d just said it to them. When they first started, they nearly cried at the prospect of doing 200 pushups. They looked at me with sad and bewildered eyes as if they were hoping I’d suddenly turn into Jesus and save them. Well, after complaining and making dumb comments, 200 pushups became 400 and I watched as each and every one of them did it. And they did it. Every one of them cranked out 400. And then, I saw what I wanted to see.
There went off a light in the back of someone’s eye, as he realized, “wait. I didn’t think I could do 200. I did FOUR hundred.” That was the moment I could tell he was already looking to the next unknown to conquer. PASSIVE ASIAN MALE NO LONGER.
But working out is just a small thing. It’s not that hard in the grand scheme of things. It’s with the hope that he who is faithful in a small thing will be faithful in a great thing. If we can love to learn hard work, to love the discipline that God disciplines His beloved children with, then we will grow. We will be made more and more into Christ’s image, in a way that when we look back, it will be with mild disbelief and awe that we have been brought so much further than we’d ever thought was possible.
THAT is why we fall. THAT is why we keep pushing when we fall.
As a lit major and as someone who used to work as an editor/adviser for people trying to get into college and grad school, I’ve had to read and write many essays, and I mean *MANY* essays. Before moving out of my old apartment at Mahaila D Unit, I had a stack of all my writing that I’d done for classes that I barely ever attended. It came up almost to my knees. That being said, it’s that season where people are starting to worry about getting into grad school and such so as it is, lots of people are looking for help with their personal statements. Here are some helpful tips when writing your personal statement.
1. Think about why you want to go to grad school — What I mean is really sit and think about why it is you want to go. Why do you care to spend tens of thousands more dollars for ANOTHER piece of paper covered in letters and numbers that somehow validates your intelligence and education? Underneath the shallow desire for a more substantial paycheck should exist a passion for what you’re pursuing. Perhaps the passion has been somewhat dimmed by reality and by the brutal grind which is academia, but it should BE there. For believers, I recommend sitting for as long as you need to, praying for clarity and discernment to understand your motivation for pursuing additional schooling. Dig deep, remember why you love what you do. If you can tap into that desire, your emotional frame of mind will come across much clearer when you sit down to write.
2. You should be emotionally invested — It’s a personal statement. Personal. You need to be emotionally invested into what you’re writing. Nobody cares about your accomplishments hitherto your application, at least not really. Unless your accomplishments are by and far greater than those of your peers, they aren’t enough to really make you stand out. This is the ONE time in the application process where you can be more than a collection of data points. This is the moment where you transcend your GPA, your GRE, LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, OAT, DAT scores and become a real person in the eyes of the admission board. What you write about should be the personal journey chronicling how you got to where you are and where it is you want to go. What challenged you in life? What reality checks did life slap you in the face with? When were you brought low, uplifted, ecstatic, terrified? Tell me about that; I don’t want to hear about who you ARE, not what classes you’ve taken.
3. Save words — Being a long-winded writer, I can understand the difficulty of this third point, but when you have a very limited space (generally 2 pages double spaced) you cannot afford to waste real estate. Every line, every word must be purposeful; it must contribute to the idea in a direct way. If you can’t describe what you felt in two lines, you won’t do it well in 20.
4. Tell a story — They don’t need a list of your course work or extra-curriculars since they can see that for themselves. Your personal statement should be a short story about those things have contributed to your life and character as a human being. As a story it should have a beginning, middle, and end. Try to think of your life and your burgeoning career in those terms. Where did I come from? How did my interest in this subject begin? What great climactic event in life serves as the impetus for this pursuit? Where do I want to go after graduate school? Most importantly, *WHY* do I want to go there?
5. Write it in one go — Nothing is worse than putting down an essay and then coming back hours later to think to yourself, “where was I going with this?” Focus! Get it done in one sitting, when your emotional and mental faculties are going at full tilt, when you have an idea of where it is you’re taking the story. When you’ve hit the zone, don’t leave it until the job is done!
6. Don’t edit right after you write — You need to cool your mind down. If the previous five steps were followed, hopefully you’ve had some moment of catharsis, or at least come close to it. Take a break, have a drink, take a nap. Leave it alone for a day and come back tomorrow to edit it.
7. RELAX — I cannot stress this last one enough. Really, it should be at the top of the list with all the other things that are very important, but here it is, so deal with it. RELAX. When you are tense and freaking out about your deadlines or whatever, a good portion of your brain is spent freaking out about those deadlines. That’s a good portion of your brain NOT WORKING ON CRAFTING YOUR STORY. Stressing out is probably the dumbest thing you can do. It doesn’t help you in any way, takes valuable gray matter out of your garden of resources, and pees in the pool of your ideas. Relax. Seriously, relax. In boxing, if you’re coming under heavy pressure and you freak out, you will drain your own stamina and be slow to defend yourself. Being tense and freaking out will get you knocked out or killed. The boxer who can relax in the pocket, however — he thrives. His mind is clear, his eyes are open and he sees the opportunities for escape or for counter-punching that the tensed boxer does not and CANNOT see. If you relax when you write, you will begin to see the faithfulness of God at work in your life as you begin to see how things have always been in His control, how the path has always been cleared and how you’ve always been provided for up to that point. You will be okay. Repeat after me, “I WILL BE OKAY.” Okay? Okay.
Hope this helps and don’t worry, I’d still love to help you with your personal statements.
I have never liked to run. When I was young, it was hard enough to get me to go run the mile in a decent time. As I got older, the length of the run just kept getting longer and longer. One mile turned into three miles which ended up turning into five miles once, after which I promptly threw off my running shoes and had about six donuts, because EFFFF YOU, Five-Mile-Run! I’ve always been one to work hard in spurts, which is why overall progress in anything I do in life is sort of slow and very wobbly. For examples, please refer to my study habits: I can go through ten weeks of material in two days, but I will fight you to the death if you try to make me spread out ten weeks of work across ten actual weeks.
They say that the spiritual life is not a sprint, but a marathon, in which case I’m pretty much screwed. But am I really? For every two steps forward I feel like I take one step back right afterward and it’s pretty frustrating because as it often is in the middle of a long run, you wonder to yourself, “Have I really gone anywhere?” Fortunately (or hopefully) it is unlike cross country in the sense that you do not run in a long and protracted circle, ending up right where you started. The thing about going two forward and one back, however, is that the trajectory is still going forward at the end. Where you ended up at the end of the spurt may not have been as far as I initially thought, but it’s something. In that, I should be thankful. Talking with a sister in Christ reminded me that salvation and perseverance in the faith in and of itself is not a small miracle, but a great one.
That we should be quickened from death to life is the great miracle of salvation. That we should be held fastened to the Cross by the blood and beauty of Christ is an enduring miracle; it is a sign and wonder to which we can always look and take solace and comfort in the sovereignty of God. Finding comfort in God has always felt just out of grasp, as if someone was always moving the finish line just another step out of my reach. In years past I thought it meant that I could do whatever, live however, and that God, like a divine mommy would pick me up, slap a bandaid on my boo-boo and send me off on my way again. But then I “grew up” and began to think of God as James Earl Jones’ rendition of the stern father from Fences (YouTube it; it is excellent). Certainly God’s not there to like me! I best be manning up and kicking ass all on my own and if I need help, I look to God and His divine bad-assedry and follow suit. The result of that was disastrous: adding the idea of a somewhat vacant and exacting God on top of my already deep sense of loneliness has been a terrifying experience.
Lonely, depressed and (still?!) heartbroken, I was feeling pretty unwanted and hideous. I just wanted to be comforted! But, the race goes on, whether you stop running or you drag yourself forward a step at a time, so I kept moving. Just put one foot in front of the other, breathe, now the put the other foot in front, breathe, just one more step, just…one more step. It was a hollow feeling and it was as if something inside me was screaming for something, for that feeling you get when you’re feeling mauled by life and someone just comes up to you and hugs you. They don’t say a word, just holds you tight. And of course, without being able to find it anywhere or in anyone, it finally just flooded out in prayer, “oh, if you’d just be material for a minute — a moment! — and wrap Your arms around me and tell me You love me; if you could just for a second remind me and let me feel like I am worth something — anything!” I don’t know when was the last time I felt so desperate for anything. I was expecting the night to simply pass without much more than the spiritual vocalization of my desperation, but it did not.
God answered. And He came as both healer and destroyer. As soon as I blurted that out, a single thought dominated my mind: “Ah, should I kill my Son again, so that you may feel loved?” I laid there sort of shocked that not only was there what seemed a clear answer, but also that it came with such haste. For a moment and in a moment, God destroyed the idols of my mind. I felt so foolish, laying there, thinking to myself and to God that somehow a hug from God would be more REAL than the sacrifice of Christ. It was like being slapped in the face and the hand doing the slapping had apparently been winding up for a very long time. Every argument, every complaint or bitterness, all the justification and rightness that I felt for my misery and indignation crumbled. The Destroyer God had come for me and I laid there and watched all my other gods fall on their faces.
It was a brutal wake up call, but it was carried along by an unmistakable undercurrent of divine love and affection. How could I feel unloved when it was for God’s love for this world and God’s love for ME that He gave His one begotten Son so that I might have a chance to to have life and have it in abundance? How could I feel worthless when He who is worth everything gave His life to purchase me from sin and death? Christ has shown His love on the cross. Christ has given me my worth with His own blood. I had chosen to forget and wallow in self-pity and teenage angst, and traded the glorious gospel of Christ for a dream of finding satisfaction in a relationship. It reminded me of what a good friend had shared at flock groups: We are not the protagonist of our own lives. And again it brought me to a sermon we heard last Sunday that exhorted us not to focus on the circumstance, or the problem, but to focus on the Savior.
I write this, maybe with the hope that someone reading will be able to relate, but mostly because this is my two steps forward, and I am preparing for my one step back. I am writing this down so that I have that moment to hold in memory as a reminder of who God is and what God has done. It’s so that I can be reminded that even if I fall on my face, at least I am still moving forward.
Because it IS a marathon, and in the words of Robert Frost, there are still many miles to go before I sleep.
You have always been there. When I didn’t know you, you were there, watching, waiting for the right time — Your time — to make Yourself known to me. I heard about you in church, from the lips of people that weren’t like You at all. I thought I hated You. Then I thought it was because I hated them. You were right there, right there in that room of an apartment ironically located in the namesake of Your holy mountain. When I broke down and fell on my face, You showed me that life was going nowhere really fast. Then You showed me that “nowhere” was smelled a lot like smoke and sulfur.
Why? Why did You have to ruin everything? You just had to butt in and destroy all my lies, all my comfortable constructs where I could play safely play hide and seek with righteousness. But You, how dare You? Why did you have to show me that, yes, in reality I really did hate You, that I’d spent my whole life running from You. Don’t You know that I’m tough? Unbreakable? Unshakable? You and Your holiness — just couldn’t stop Yourself from calling me out, could You. Now I know that I’m a coward. Thanks for nothing.
How dare You. I never wanted You, never wanted anything to do with You. I didn’t want to be counted among the legions of the sanctimonious morons, the brigades of stern-faced old women dealing the crack that we call religion in Your name. Why not give me what I want? Why did you have to give me what I need? Ignorance was bliss!
And then You were there and for the first time, I saw into the past and saw You hanging there. In my mind’s eye, You looked right at me and just wouldn’t stop looking. Don’t look at me like that; I didn’t kill You. I didn’t nail You to that tree…did I? Why wouldn’t You stop staring at me! I never asked for You to die for me, so why pin this on me? And why — why at the end of the day, did I feel my guilt? Something changed.
Why did You love me? Why did You sacrifice Yourself for me, in spite of my hatred for You, my scorn for everything that You prize. Why did You rescue me when I fought so hard to die? You dared. You dared to spit in the face of the devil, and to snatch away the souls of the ones You inexplicably chose. You dared to descend to the ranks of the creation and leave aside god-hood for a body of flesh, flesh ultimately torn from Your back, Your head; flesh parted when the nails drove home through Your wrists.
You dared to reconcile a humanity that, like me, cheered as You died, continuing in ignorance that You won that very day. We thought we’d succeeded! We were so happy to think that we’d killed YOU, ended YOU and the tyranny of righteousness, the slavery to the law and the death that we all wanted so badly.
But the skies went black. The earth shook and the veil between God and man was torn in half. Three days later, there You stood in victory, and down went we on our knees, unknowing of another place where we could dare to stand. We killed You on the cross. You took us with You. We fought You with hatred, with everything that marks us as fallen. You broke us with love and everything that makes You the Great Savior, Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man, Emmanuel, God with us, Author of Salvation, the Alpha and the Omega.
Where can I run to escape You? How could I ascend to defy You? I, who can’t change a single hair on my head; what could I do to thwart You? Can man strive against God with success? I never wanted You; now I want to want nothing but You. I hated You; now my meager affections can barely be called love. I mocked and scorned You; now I am mocked and scorned for You. How dare you love me? How dare I stand here brazen when grace compels me to kneel?
How dare I be silent? How dare I doubt You and question Your goodness? How dare I?
Do not go gentle into that good night, Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight And you, my father, there on the sad height, — Dylan Thomas
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Today I was one of several men acknowledged as “leaders” of RGC. Suddenly the weight of that really sunk in and I realized that as of yet and probably forever more, I am not the man I can be, the man that I ultimately must be. One of the things that Pastor Chris reminds me of constantly is that as men we must accept that we are inadequate and that we will always be inadequate. I pray then, that as per his encouragement, I’ll learn to be filled with the Lord’s strength as I grow in understanding how deeply inadequate I really am.
All you need is Jesus. No more. No Less. Boom.
