God-Wrestler

I was reading through some of my older posts and I came across this one. I forgot about it and I really like it. So I thought I would share it with you again. 

The breeze blows by riding down the path
their lonely faces appear, some are filled with fear
all trying to avoid His wrath.

I keep riding, and just look away
their eyes give a stare, they think i’m unaware
and all i know to do is pray

They don’t see His Good
They don’t see He is forever
Blind to His faithfulness
Blind to His Love
They don’t see

I stear my bike to the side
they watch me go, they are asking if it’s no
I don’t know why I duck and hide

Why don’t they understand
how can i reach them all, but how can i let them fall
Why don’t they reach for His hand

They don’t see His Good
They don’t see He is forever
Blind to His faithfulness
Blind to His Love
They don’t see

The Lord is good,
His love endures forever
His faithfulness continues
They Don’t See

They don’t see His Good
They don’t see He is forever
Blind to His faithfulness
Blind to His Love
They don’t see

They don’t see His Good
They don’t see He is forever
Blind to His faithfulness
Blind to His Love
They don’t see

I pray louder, louder, louder
Lord let them see Your Good
Lord let them see You Forever
See His Faithfulness
See His Love
Lord let them See

What would you do if you could do what ever you really wanted right now? What would you change or try to do differently? I have been asking myself this alot lately to try and really focus on what goals I have and how to work towards them. Here is the conclusion that I have come to. 

If I could do what I really want to do right now, it would be to go to grad school. I really have a strong desire to go back to school for my masters. The next question is a masters in what. I have gone back and forth on this and its down to two choices. First choice would be a masters in divinity. My second choice would be a masters in some type of counseling, like to be a high school counselor. So if this is what I really want to do then why don’t I go do it. 

Well I have run into some problems. First problem is that I have no idea how I could pay for it. I took out more loans for my undergrad than I would have liked and I dont want to have to take out more for my masters. Then well my lets just say that my final gpa wasn’t too wonderful. It was way better than I needed to graduate but still not good enough for the programs I’m interested in.

So where do I go from here is the next question. What do I have to do so I can do what I want to do? I don’t know. I just felt like ranting a little. If you would of told me this is what my life would look like almost at age 25 back in high school. I would have laughed so hard at you. I guess thats life and how God works in his time and not my time.

Is everything I do meaningless? Is the life we live like chasing after the wind, a task so pointless its hard to imagine? There are many moments that I find myself giving into this idea that I live a truly meaningless life. The author of Ecclesiastes addressed this feeling to in chapter 2:10-11.

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
       I refused my heart no pleasure.
       My heart took delight in all my work,
       and this was the reward for all my labor.
 11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
       and what I had toiled to achieve,
       everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
       nothing was gained under the sun.

Thinking this way begins to truly scare me. We must see that God gives meaning to our lives, that he provides the delightment of our hearts, not the labor we toil over. Our meaning can be found in God, we are told so in Ephesians 2:10 

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Our meaning is found in doing the good works Christ has prepared for us. I would say that if we continue to find no meaning in what we are doing, then we may not be doing what Christ has prepared for us in advance. The meaning could also be lost be cost we do not know our own identity and purpose. I do not know where to find those except for in Christ. Who we are in Christ is a life lived to the full, a life of meaning and purpose.

So I haven’t been in the mood or really wanting to write anything lately. I feel like all the creative juice has just been sucked out of me. If you weren’t aware I actually have a job now. Well its a job in the fact that they pay me for being there. I took the night auditor position at Forest Park Suites. If you can’t tell i’m not the least bit excited about this except for the fact that i will actually be bringing some income in.

I had so many dreams, desires, and ambitions. They all seemed to fly out the window when i started working here. This is not what i had in mind at all and well it has sunk me into a reality that i never saw coming. I would venture to say that i am depressed. Well as depressed as my personality will let me be. There is nothing happy about this job, but I am trying to learn the joy that this job can offer me. I know God has to be using this situation in my life for something, I guess i was hoping that i was past this learning phase of my life.

I was hoping that I would be doing something that I found meaningful. I know that I do many meaningful things through young life and sharing my life with others but I just wanted my job to also have a greater purpose than just taking people’s money and printing useless reports.

I don’t know what more to say, I’m tired of saying it. Just pray for me that God gives me peace with this job or leads me to something new.

Romans 8:26-28 (The Message)

26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

So I feel like I’m stuck in pit of quick sand. The more I try the more it feels like I’m seeking. I got no help in sight. I can’t get a job anywhere. At this point I applied for over 110 different positions and have only had two interviews which have gone no where. I have given up on going for jobs that I want and have applied for anything that seems to be feasible. I’m not asking for much, just an entry level salary and decent hours.

I guess a bachelors degree just doesn’t cut it anymore. I am either not qualified for the position or I look over qualified. I can’t seem to get a call back on a stupid retail job. Needless to say I am beginning to get very discouraged and losing any bit of motivation I have.

One positive thing I am trying to get out of this is how I am defining myself. I see that in most peoples lives today the define themselves essentially on the jobs they have. Ask somebody who they are and most of the time they would reply with well I’m so and so I work for blah. I want to say, I’m Randy and I live for Christ. Christ is the only hope that I have right now. I have faith that he will provide me with any needs I have.

I need a job!

I am pretty much open to anything at this point. Something that gives me some sort of income would be nice.

I have officially lost my motivation to do pretty much anything. I don’t think I have ever been like this before, but I don’t care about doing anything. I don’t feel the need to do anything, and I have no reason to seriously get out of bed. This job search has really taken it all out of me. I have now put out ruffly fifty applications and have barely received any responses.

I should be excited about all of this “free time” that I have now. I could work on so many projects that I have desired to do but never had the time too. I could clean my room and organize my life, but instead I sit in front of the TV with my laptop not paying any attention to the TV or doing anything on my laptop but waiting for an email to come through. My life has always been so busy and now it has come to a complete stop.

You would think that this would be great for me to really spend sometime with God, but it has really been a distraction for me. I keep saying, “I have all day to do that,” and then never get around to spending time with the one I love. I am just waiting as patiently as I can. I am waiting for the Lord to move in my life, to give me the direction I have been needing on where my life is going now. I might be missing that if I can’t really listen to Him.

If you were to ask me a few years ago what my life would like now, it would not resemble anything like this. I would have never said that I would be 23 living with my parents, unemployed with a college degree, and over weight with out a girlfriend. I feel like such a loser. To top it all off my high school reunion is this coming weekend and well I don’t feel good about it at all.

I can, however, say that I am where I’m at while following Christ and part of me wants to believe I am right where Christ’s wants me and is preparing me for greater things in life. Its becoming harder and harder to truly believe that though. So, I will sit here patiently and wait on the Lord.

Lamentations 3:24
I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

So one thing that was asked of me during summer staff was if I had a verse that was the my life theme. What piece of scripture do you look at as the the guiding principle of my life? Well I had no answer. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I mean I have lots of verses that mean a lot to me and that I try to apply daily. I also feel that the bible as a whole is a theme for me. I mean its all God’s word and God’s direction in my life. So is it right/good to have just one theme verse in your life or does that limit the power the scripture as a whole has to work in your life?

Is there a balance I need to find to where one bit of scripture I focus on daily while I chew on other scripture in my life? Can I find different scripture during different phases in my life to act as the theme of my life? All I know is that when it was asked of me and I had no answer I was given the “are you serious what kind of a christian are you look.” But in all honesty I don’t know if its a bad thing to not have a theme verse for my life.

I would like to know your thoughts on this. Please let me know if you have a theme verse or what you think about this idea.

To hope is to love, to love is to seek God, to seek God is Righteousness

just a thought i had….