responses to the mar 24 deal:

trent

i know this feeling. it's a slightly different feeling for me, but yeah, the heart of these words drive really deep within me.
i sit here morning after morning at work and ponder what's missing...what is keeping me from being more of the 'bride' of Christ that i know He is calling me to be? so yeah, i'm not sure how to express what i'm feeling well either, but i do know this...i'm tired of 'living'. i'm tired of just going on day after day and not being used, not making a difference. it seems that the past few years have just been a really dry time for me. i miss the fire. i miss the closeness to God that i had a while back. i miss the communication with Him that used to include almost every aspect of my day and not just during a quiet time in the morning or evening. i hate the fact that the only time i feel close to God any more is during a time of worship or one of the few quiet times where i actually think i see a glimpse of Him. i long for the intimacy that i once had with Him. where has it gone? why have i become content with just living, just getting by?

i'm feeling so much more, but the words are just not there.

todd

amen and amen
i just had a conversation with a student yesterday about how we medicate ourselves and settle for so much less than we could have...

but i also commented how that medication becomes addiction, b/c it gradually takes more and more to cover the sham that is a life lived apart from God....

the frail disguise grows thinner each day, and each day i am presented with the choice of medicating myself with more of my drugs or a new combination of drugs... or i could choose to leave the drugs and, feeling the burn of withdrawl, really live...

Liz

i know you and i haven't ever really talked before, but hey...you and jill are friends, and so i feel i can reply to this.
a. c.s. lewis is my fave, and i can see you own at least a few of his books, i recognized my favorite part from "the weight of glory." i *love* that part.

b. are you me? every frustration of yours is also mine.

i have come to a place where i have so many questions that i don't have answers to. and so i have to hang on. i know that there must be an element of faith working in me. b/c even with questions like, "is God even real?"...i haven't abandoned this "christianity" thing. b/c i guess deep down i know there isn't anything else.

funny you mention the eternal things. the other night i was trying to go to sleep and it wasn't working b/c i was getting sort of freaked out by the concept of eternity. I was laying there practically crying b/c this concept is so far out of my thinking ability. I was like, "God, sure i want to spend a long time with you, but forever?" then he showed me that i was still thinking inside the box of time. that eternity has nothing to do with time at all. and that to do things in the world that matter, i have to think of them having eternal importance. which is basically loving God and loving others, and worshipping Him with what he's given me. we think it's so hard to live eternity minded...but is it really?
isn't it the times we lose ourselves in worshipping God that three hours goes by and we have no idea how? isn't it the time we spend with friends and loved ones that we wonder how it got to be 2 a.m. already? the time we spend at work or school serving and doing the best we can to spread the joy of the lord to those around us...the work seems less and the time goes by quickly? it is these times when we touch the eternal.

i know none of this is probably flowing, but oh well. i just want to let you know that i read it all, and that i could have written the exact same words, except using my name instead of yours.

hang on with the faith that lives inside you...the faith that won't let you go of God despite all the uncertainty.

-Liz

jill

when i read this i couldnt help but think of paul when he talked about running the race marked out for him. he said that he hadnt attained his prize, but he keeps running in hopes of reaching his goal.
when ever i read that passage, i automatically think that he is talking about holiness and purity. (probably because there are millions of sermons about it) i dont think that is what he was talking about when he wrote that, because he knew that it wasnt his strength that made him holy...running the race faster or better doesnt make a difference with GOd. our rightousness is like dirty rags.

i think the passion that inspired him to write those words, is the same passion that inspired you to write what you just did...
you may never see your dreams come true, but let that desperate desire push you to keep running, no matter what. Who knows why God puts dreams in us. have you ever considered that it isnt to see them come to pass, but maybe it is just to bring us closer to Him? i know i have dreampt about doing so many things, and i know that some of them were just tests to see if i would actually give all of myself in service to Him...He just wanted to see my love, and He wanted me to see my love for Him. sometimes it wasnt in the best condition

things get boring, "normal" sets in, but deep down you will always have that yearning for more...dont let it go! its a gift and it is from the Lord! we pampered american christians get so comfortable here. i rejoice when i get revelations like you just had, it makes seeking Him so much easier.

truly living. i dont have anything to say about it right now, except that i want to. that may mean moving to a place that can teach me how, and it might mean giving up things that are so normal to me...but i want to live, truly live, and i know that there is more life to have here on earth then i have experienced already.

There is a me you would not recognize...
Over the Rhine

Some movies make me want to be bigger than myself. Almost Famous happens to be the movie of the hour. Sometimes its movies like Shawshank, or Good Will, or even Say Anything. They make me step back and take a look at myself. Not that they're anything profound or anything, but they touch something inside of me that doesn't get touched all that often. It doesn't have to be a movie. Sometimes its a concert that transcends mere music. I remember a Waterdeep show doing that for me once. The Violet Burning another time. Sometimes its a conversation with a friend, or perhaps a week hanging out with someone else that actually gets it. That actually gets a bit of what living is all about. That gets what its like to live outside of your own little world. For me, I get stuck in my own little world all too often. I'm an introvert to the core. Most of the time I enjoy the landscapes in my mind more than the dynamic landscapes around me. Most of my friendships are shallow. Not shallow in the normal sense of the word. I would give my life for most of my friends. Perhaps they would for me, too, I don't know. But few people really know me. And that's by choice. I share myself with so few people. And I don't know why. And it rarely bothers me that few people know me. Oh, I have my moments. Times like tonights class party when I could hardly find someone to sit with that actually knew my name. Sure, that's tough. But most of the time I could care less. I'd just as soon sit at home on a Friday night alone and watch Almost Famous than go to "the" party of the year that the entire school is going to. That's just me. For good or bad.

But there are moments like I mentioned before, moments like what I'm feeling now. Legends of the Fall is another one that's done it for me. Something, anything that makes me stand up and take stock of my life. Of who I am. That allow me to see myself for who I really am, and maybe even a bit of what I could be.

I fell like I'm so short of the mark. Not just short of the righteousness mark, but short of the Christopher Shane Hall mark. The mark God had in mind when He made me. I've been spoon-fed apathy. Acceptance. Static. Staleness. Laziness.

I've hit a brick wall. I don't even know how to write how I feel. I don't even know if I should write it.

I have so many visions for my life as I'd like it to be. I've had all these visions. Visions of taking my med school by storm, inspiring many there to follow Him with zeal. Visions of inspiring others to worship. Visions of serving the poor. Visions of being a friend others love to have around and confide in. Visions of loving someone like she is meant to be loved. Visions of being so much more than I am. Visions of being a devoted follower. Visions of embracing my education. Visions of broadening my mind, of reading great works, of being inspired by great music and great poetry. Visions of friends that share my visions.

But I'm stuck. Every week is the same. Every month is the same. I've gone no where in the past year. Dare I say years? Sure, by God's grace and mercy I've managed to get this far, but where does God's work and action end and my responsibility and action begin?

So what about this movie inspired me to write? There was a story of love. There was a story of the uncool guy with a happy ending. What about the other movies inspire me? The nice guy stuck in a horrible situation finding freedom and the joys of freedom. The joys of life. The smart, misunderstood intelligent kid who gets the girl and gets the life he wants and that he's always dreamed of. That might be the common thread. The no name guy finding the life he's dreamed of.

And me, well, I don't think I'm anywhere close to the life I've dreamed of. I'm 24. I'll be 25 this year. Halfway to 50. Halfway through my 20s. 6 years removed from my teenage years. There are so many things I want to do. There are so many things I want to be. Yet I'm no where close to them. Sure, I'm in med school. I'll be a doc in 3 years. But that's not what I'm passionate about. Sure, the practice of medicine excites me. But that's not my passion. I've had way too many conversations with people about that to know that about myself. My passion is worship. My passion is exploring what love means here on earth. And yet I'm not really making any of that a reality. My worship doesn't extend beyond the time I spend strumming a guitar by myself. My only experience with love has been to take it to an extreme, really to an obsession that drove the person I loved more dearly than anything or anyone as far away as can possibly be imagined.

So here I am on a Friday night, writing I know not what, really, I guess hoping that by writing I'll somehow stumble across the answer I'm looking for. It's like if I write long enough, the answers will spring from the dark recesses of my mind, like they've somehow been there all along and I just haven't seen it.

I want to love God like He's meant to be loved. I want Him to tap me on the shoulder and say "hey" as kelly a. mentioned. I want Him to confide in me. I want to be able to confide in Him. I want a bit of heaven here on earth.

I want to live a larger life than I'm living. I don't want to be the uncool guy in the corner. But I don't want to be "cool" either. I just want to live. I want to live life abundantly. I want to quit getting trapped into wasting time on things that don't matter. I want my life to be about all things eternal. Maybe that's what I mean by living life larger that I'm living it. I want my 24 hrs everyday to be about eternal things. I'd dare say less than 30 minutes of every day I'm living now is about eternal things.

Oh man, that's it. Perhaps it was there in the recesses all along. I want to live eternally, and I want to live it now. Is it possible? Can one really live all things eternal now? Can one really live without the doldrums? Can everything really be about the eternal. Can the job flipping burgers really be about the eternal? Or can we only taste the eternal on special occasions here and there. I sure hope not. That's not my dream. My dream is for so much more.

I dream of beauty. I dream of life. I dream of greatness. I dream of greatness in His eyes. I'm hardly that.

So where does it begin? If one has a vision, how does one take that first step? Where does it begin when you've been so far gone? Is it simply enough to be like the prodigal and take the first steps on the road home, only to look up and see the Father running for you? Or does the journey have to be much longer sometimes? Or does the journey even always include the dreams and visions you've had?

I want to wake up tomorrow and breathe His greatness. I want to be empty of myself. I want to be rid of all this self-centeredness. I want to get rid of all this self-pleasure, self-entertainment, self-medication that does nothing but suck me inward so I never see the big picture. I want to hold onto this feeling of seeing more than I am. I want to shake myself of all the schemes the enemy drugs me. I want to no longer be satisfied with mediocrity.

"The greatest enemy of holiness is not passion; it is apathy." -eldredge

"And so Screwtape reveals the enemy's ploy--first make humans flabby, with small passions and desires, then offer a sop to those diminished passions so that their experience is one of contentment. They know nothing of great joy or great sorrow. They are merely -nice-." -cs lewis

"Give me a man in love; he knows what I mean. Give me one who yearns; give me one who is hungry; give me one far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal Country. Give me that sort of man; he knows what I mean. But if I speak to a cold man, he just doesn't know what I am talking about." -augustine

"He who has the Son, has life" -john

"Chris McCandless wrote, 'All hail the Phantom Bear, the beast within us all.' Well the 'Bear' so to speak has really been growling loud as of late. I seem to be daily wanting more out of my life than what I have been living. Leo Tolstoy wrote, 'I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in my quiet life.' And that really describes me well. I want more...more of God in my life...more intimacy with my friends...and I feel bad for wanting it. Everyone seems so content her and simple...and also I feel like I'm longing for nothing I'm certain of." -journey of desire

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy." -proverb

"It can't be done. No matter how hard we try, no matter how clever our plan, we cannot arrange for the life we desire." -eldredge

I don't even know what I'm wanting to write now. It's all rambling. And will it even make a difference?

"We do not want merely to -see- beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it." -cs lewis

"...it is not -in- them, it only comes through them and what comes through them is longing...They are not the thing in itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited." -cs lewis

"Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identifed with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never -had- it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, "Here at last is the thing I was made for." We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all." -cs lewis.

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." -cs lewis

May I not be so easily pleased anymore, Lord God of the Universe.

i'm such a poor child. of God that is.
I betray Him every second chance I get.

Today was a very bad day.
A nothing day.
I've been back 4 days and already I've lost my excitement.
bleh.
is it Satan and his attacks?
Or is it me?
Or both.

Either way, I'm saddened to be here.
In this state.
Where is my passion?
Where is my zeal?

Once again, Am I so far gone?