Context: Last night, about 12:30 AM, sitting atop my loft bed, writing to God.
Wedged in between delicate prayers, with clash-like interruptions, my written thoughts violently yet truthfully reveal the current condition of my heart...
My journal entry for April 27th is something similar to as follows:
(Prayers...blah..blah...prayers..) "This pen sucks." (Prayers..blah..blah blah...) "I want to throw it off my bed." (prayers...blah..blah..blah... delicate prayers...) "But if I throw it down, I won't be able to write anymore." (prayers...blah..blah..blah...delicate prayers...) Amen.
I couldn't go to bed-No, not after such blunt and shamefully unembarrassed interruptions in my conversation with The King. I took the time to write it down; why couldn't I be distracted and just think it? In this entry I left behind clear evidence which proves me guilty of having a divided attention; and indeed-today, as I reflect, I confess...es la verdad: my attention is hardly undivided, nor is it directed towards The King.
I find it interesting, and perhaps if it weren't my journal entry, even amusing that the immediate thought process was "...if I throw it down, I won't be able to write anymore." At the time, I had an unreasonable amount of anger towards the pen for running out of ink. Yet all the while accrediting it with being valuable: I thought of this pen as my only means of writing.
...As if I couldn't get off my bed and get another pen. As if I don't have a surplus of blue papermate medium ball-point pens sitting untouched in the right hand drawer of my desk.
Immediately I thought, "ughh...this devo time with God blows... and its the pen's fault." "If it weren't for this pen..." "I hate this pen." This pen, this pen, this pen...
I blamed the pen rather than my laziness. It is so easy for me to be mad at circumstances. So easy. ...And likewise it is so gratifying to be unaware that the solution is-being prevented by-me.
I really did blame a mediocre night of prayer on that pen.
In reflecting, I wonder on what else I'm blaming my boring walk:
"well, I can't be radical-I'm in a contract with Charley where I have to stay
in school & pursue a degree, I'm forced to be here until I graduate in Spring 2011;""I do have money, I'm not dead broke, I'm not a missionary serving in India;"
"These are my circumstances. Therefore I'm off the hook, I mean, its harder being radical in southern California;"
"God put me here knowing it would be like this...God's standard of my living must be different than his standard for your living/for Miles McPherson's/for Francis Chan's/for my friends'...;"
"If God really wants me to be a more radical follower and have a more radical life, then he will relocate me. Yah, that sounds good."
How ridiculous, to blame my lazy, divided, complacent heart on the blessings God gave me. This isn't even an issue of a having a boring, unweighted, insignificant life (which I understand some people indeed posess, as a direct consequence of not obeying God)
Me:the precedent of a failed marriage. No, me: the precedent of a failed attempt to marry. Somewhere, someone-maybe even many people-prayed that God would use the consequence of two peoples' sin for His Glory. And like a "knight in shinning armor" coming to the rescue on a Pegasus...God-The-Rescuer answered that prayer with "Gladly."
"I will gladly take this baby girl, and she will be my daughter...and she will be apart of something great!"
My heart fails to respond to God's glory...
I am already apart of something great, and this whole time I've been apart of something great.
Conclusion: its not the pens fault.
