Looking back now I can see that it was more than anything a failure to believe in the story of who God is and what he is doing in this world. Instead of living that story – one of sacrifice and purpose and character – I began to live a much smaller story, and that story was only about me. I wanted an answer, a timeline and a map. I didn’t want to have trust in God or anything I couldn’t see. I didn’t want to wait or follow. I wanted my old life back, and even while I read the mystics and the prophets, even while I prayed fervently, even while I sat in church and begged for God to direct my life, those things didn’t have a chance to transform me, because under all those actions and intentions was a rocky layer of faithlessness, fear and selfishness.
-Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet
There are a lot of these sorts of feelings in my life. You maybe wouldn’t know it if you talked to me, and I try to ignore it because I hate it, but the truths are that it’s hard to work at a job I don’t love in a town I don’t like without a community or a plan. I don’t want those things to be true but they are and I am a poor handler of my own emotions. I pray for rescue, not redemption. I pray for direction, but not to be able to trust. I have been throwing a nearly year-long tantrum. I know these practices aren’t what are best for me, and I know that I am failing, like Shauna, to believe in the ultimate story and character of God. I know. And now you know too. Please pray for me, for the right things.
