runaway Christian.

I like the Old Testament. A lot. Like... a lot a lot.

I was reading in Job today, and there's all this stuff about the awe-someness of God. About how He commands the sun, and set the stars, and stretches the skies, and walks on the oceans. Sometimes, it's easy for me to fly by that kinda thing as metaphor. But today, I stopped. That's not metaphor. It's literal. He's God. He can do all of that.

Here's my problem. I don't know that I deep down believe, or understand that. I think I believe it, in the sense that I believe that He's God, and I've got a good enough grasp of the dictionary to know what words like "omnipotent," and "almighty," actually mean. But I don't know that I really understand it, that I really grasp it in my soul. I am sometimes underwhelmed by the power of God.

That's probably never a good place to be.

It leads to things like running. I've been thinking a lot about running recently. It's probably not kosher to say this, as I've been applying for a job at the church, and just got into AGTS. But it's true. I feel so completely inadequate to take on the work that I feel called to, that I've been thinking of running from God, from the church, from the call. Thinking of saying, "God, you've got the wrong girl." As though He could ever be wrong.

There's a problem though. I absolutely suck at running from God. I mean, I am really, really terrible at it. My best "running plan" is to become a "casual Christian." And I have never been able to pull that off. As a child, I prayed to a God I didn't know. As a teenager, I left the church feeling like they had Him wrong. In college, I wandered drunk calling out to Him. I would talk to coworkers so passionately of the example of the person of Christ, I'd be in tears. I moved here, and refused to leave a church I had major disagreements with, because I felt I'd been placed. Liberal theology, or conservative--casual spirituality is just not my thing.

If I try to run, I will be miserable. That's a fact. So what are my options? As usual, to keep walking. I guess?

Here's the real problem. I cry out to God, quite literally, but I know that the promises are there. I just have to believe them. I'm closing my heart, and calling out, and that's illogical. I'm holding on to some things that need to be released. Control, fear, certainty. And I can't claim that I don't know, or that I'm too young. So I get discouraged. I stink at faith. How do I make this work?

I don't. From the beginning, I've asked God to sustain my faith. Literally, to put faith where it just isn't there. To move my heart, to change it, to do everything that I can't do, which is...everything.

I have never stopped believing that He honors that prayer.

Hmm.