when i think your God is too big for me

You know those moments when a thought in your head is insanely witty, or humorous.... and then later you go to write it down and    -nothing... me. I have had thoughts for blogs, but lately I think too many people have too much to say. So I try to limit my blogs for when my thoughts are more ironed out, or at least re-occur to me enough that I want to share the journey. This one will be revised and hatched and re-written several times, and may never make the web (yet will still have typo-s).


I want to be different.

I love to be different.

It's becoming a pride thing how important it is to me. I am defined by it, by me- being myself, my way... my identity. 

So what happens when all the things that define me encounter God, when I realize I am trying to hold water.

Chris and I entered 'full-time' ministry just over a year ago. It's in quotes for many reasons. Am I in 'full-time' ministry if Chris is the one with the job description? Isn't every one in 'full-time' ministry? Does it count if we aren't sharing the gospel? .... really, 'full-time' ministry means.... (in most cases) 1.  we get our paycheck from christians, 2. we're poor(ish)

The post-summer camp season has been significantly difficult (gives you an idea how long ago I started this blog). Having stepped away from a summer where I did everything I thought I 'had always wanted to do', I felt empty.

... And I try to be open as wise people say, 'It's not about what you do... it's about Him (or it's about being) (or it's about love)' and I think- 'ok, how do I do that'. How does one fill emptiness by doing nothing, it would seem an action is needed.

I am not sure how to meet with God, how to encounter him. How to be grateful that his grace covers the annoying people in my life. I feel superficial when my greatest concerns are whether Chris will track salty, muddy, snow through the house and if people will like my pizza dough.  'These are the areas your blood covers?! Really?, I'm so lame'.  (I say things like this to God)

I am not sure how to encounter teens and say, 'pray bigger-than-yourself-prayers. That's when you will understand why we need God, why we need scripture' and I then turn and fume, FUME over trite things, every day things, things which when I meet God will I turn in shame as Jesus says, 'I died for that'.

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. (Is 53:5) 

He was wounded, crushed, forsaken  for my selfishness, my pig-headedness, my alienating perfectionism... It makes me wish I had murdered someone (though not really. but if we are being HONEST) so that I could say, 'yes, the big sins, thank you Jesus for shedding your blood for my big, horrific sins'. 

But no, my sins are more disgusting, more putrid, because I am fairly good at making them lovely. I want to move MY OWN mountains, and SAVE people with my critically-deveoloped theology, and CHANGE them- I so so want to change people, I would make a GREAT Holy Spirit. And I like the sound of that, so you see, I sympathize with Lucifer- I am evil and lost without God, I want to be Him. 

Your God is too big for me, a God who can love me.. ME? The person constantly saying, 'Jesus, thank you, but could you please move over so I can get some stuff done'. ?! 

At some point in my 'faith- walk, journey, Christian life' I started becoming Jesus... but not in the way you think, I started to really believe I am a savior, I am going into full-time ministry one day to save people ( I would think) I am needed in this world- isn't everyone so lucky to have me. 

And so these thoughts have been swirling my my head for a few months, about ministry and grace, and the 'real' me I hope no one ever sees. And I have recently found some comfort in this idea:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. 

I have always thought the 'old that has gone' was any sin pre-'sinners prayer'. I am working on believing, on internalizing, being free in and living out that the old, is the flesh I will still fight with every day, and it is the old that is dead, though still fighting with me this moment. 

BUT God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

.... So as the doubts and anger and general sin-ingness swirl in my head I work on saying, 

not 'But, God?' and instead:

'BUT GOD'.

So that I can begin to be defined not by my differentiality... but by Him.

Mercy, yes.

Grace, yes.

Hope, oh yes.

Freedom, hopefully, by grace- soon.

Love. YES. From the one who is love, who became love in human form.

It's all to big for me. Surpassing, if you will.