tahiti to james river, tba.

I'm a mess. Why am I such a mess?

I'm not really a mess. I have a job I like. I'm in an academic program that I'm not paying for. Opportunities abound. I have good health insurance, and a car that runs, and a place to live. My relationships with family and friends are good.

So why is my spiritual life like a third-world war-zone?

Maybe it's not that bad. More like an inner-city playground.

Invariably, I ask myself this question, and I hear back, be still. Listen.

And then I start thinking about how sometimes "listening" to God is nothing more than listening to the way that our surrounding culture characterizes God, and how we can't really know, and how I'm afraid of falling into something false.

Within seconds, I'm ready to pull out my hair. I don't know how to be with God, without being with all the junk that everyone says about Him. People are wrong about God's will all the time. Sometimes, the error is innocuous. Sometimes, it messes up their lives, and the lives of people around them. What then? How to trust "being with God"?

I want to give up faith. But I can't. I've had this very palpable sense, while down here, that I'm in this now. I continually think, "Enough already," and then, "Suck it up. Keep going." I can't stop because I already feel truth. For better or worse. Hopefully better, at some point.

I've been taking a "church vacation" this week (read: vacation from church). Earlier this week, I was praying, and as I was praying, I was thinking about how I don't understand prayer, and am I making up God in my head?, and what do I expect to happen? And finally, I just said, God, I don't get it. But I'm going to stop caring about how it works, and how You work, and what You look like, and about what prayer should be. Instead, I'm going to talk, honestly, about what's up, and whatever comes of it, comes.

That night, I was praying some more (for sucking at it so badly, and being so confused by it, I really like prayer, though I prefer to think of it more as chatting), and I felt the need to flip to Corinthians. I read, you might guess, the wedding verses. But I read them differently. I saw things I had never seen before (and who hasn't read those verses 17 million times?), and understood the words in a way so personal, the only viable response was worship.

I had asked to understand Christ's love. And in that moment, and every night since then, somehow, I've been given understanding. I mean, you know, inasmuch as I can understand. Salvation is still a mystery. I'm not writing a bestseller, or heading for the talk-show circuit. But I've understood for myself. I've felt His love in a way that I haven't felt it for a very long time. And feeling it has made me want to give it.

On that count, I fail spectacularly. But for right now--how amazing. To be cared for by God is... (uh-oh, stealing from Chris Tomlin in 3...2...1..) indescribable (I am getting so hip to the Christian scene). I feel like I'm in rehab. God is one hell of a counselor.

So what about church? I need to pry open my heart, somehow. Or maybe I don't. Christ may have that covered. I think the teaching is good. I think the people are sincere. My heart hurts not to be there. I don't have to have it all figured out.

All vacations have to end.