an honest hope

I started writing this blog with the idea that I would always be honest, no matter who read it, or how many who's. No matter how my thoughts changed, or what happened to my heart. I started attending church with somewhat the same idea. I vowed that I would be honest with people when I agreed, and when I disagreed.

That honesty got harder the more involved I became. It's easy to be honest when you're anonymous. Not so much when you know people, when you see them in the hall, and then when you're suddenly on the big screens talking about Jesus, and then applying for a job and seminary, and chatting with the pastors.

But my honesty in faith has brought me this far. It must be valuable, important.

My heart is a mess right now.

I'm walking this funny line, and on the one side is an excitement in faith that seems ready to carry me into the best life--this side is the side I've been promised, the possibilities I've hoped for. At this same exact time, there's this other side, that's threatening to drag me into more darkness than I've ever understood.

How can my faith be both so ready for incredible growth, and also so close to collapse?

I'm not in a desert. God has become more real, and more powerful to me over the last few months than ever before. I cry through services not because I'm defeated, but because I'm sensing something in Him that's new, and gorgeous. Because I'm learning.

So how then can I be in this place of such total vulnerability to life-altering sin? The last six months have seen one trial after another--it almost feels intentional. As though someone is cherry-picking these situations to poke my softest places. My relationships are being tested, and my heart is found weak. I'm thinking and feeling things about friends that are so far from loving, I can't believe that God can exist in the same heart that feels them. I'm being tested with alcohol, and sex in ways that have been totally off the radar for the past two years. I have at times been so miserable at this job that I have prayed to God that I wouldn't wake up the next morning--but I'm not depressed!

It's all so crazy, I just step back, and think what in the WORLD is going on?

And then...Father, will I make it through these trials?

I've been thinking a lot about wisdom, and how I know that prayer, and time with God are the wise answers in these moments. But what's knowledge unless I'm truly acting on it? Thus...wisdom is truth in practice, in action.

Father, I'm giving you all of the sin, and all of the tests, and all of the possibilities, and all of the pride. Please bring me what I need in each new moment.