Picture
"I think I'm going to start blogging again." I said to her over our morning coffee date. 

"That's good!" she replied because she's awesome and supportive. "Why'd you quit in the first place?"

It was a valid question that I hadn't even asked myself yet. The fact was I was frustrated that I had worked so hard on every post. Prayerfully considering every word. Searching my soul for hope and truth. Dredging the mud and mire of my heart hoping to produce good art. 

And my last post had a grand total of 30 views.

I was just frustrated that no one seemed to be paying attention to what I felt was solid writing.  I was frustrated that other blogs that I had deemed inferior got thousands of views and that blogger received sponsors and book deals and launched a lucrative writing career. While I felt like just another useless voice in the crowd. 

So I quit.

Feel free to judge me if you like. I'm judging myself. This is a confession of sorts. I'm showing you my weakness and letting you decide what you want to do with it. Denounce me as an insincere jerk or relate with my honesty. Either way I'm cool with it.

After I had expressed these frustrations to my wife she looked at me for a moment, making sure my selfish rant was over and she asked me one of those questions that I hate and love because they mean more than what they seem on the surface:

"Well, what's your point in blogging? Because if it's to help and encourage people then you're already doing that..."

One of the reasons I love her is that she said the positive and left the accusation unsaid. ...if your point is becoming known, if it's getting a book deal and ignoring the people that read and need encouragement...then you're missing the point.

The problem was that I had caught the western disease of wanting so desperately to be a hero. I had confused being "known" with being good. I felt this pressure to do "great things" for God and when I tried and failed it felt like I must be a bad writer or God doesn't love me enough to use me to reach a massive audience. This crooked way of thinking had permeated my cells. Confusing being known/popular/famous with being good/talented/loved.

I recognized that grossness in myself and so in reaction I stopped blogging for a few months more. I had to try to suck the poison out. I have always known that a humble life lived before God isn't a bad life...I just had to kill that western cancer that told me otherwise everyday.

There is a difference between being a hero and being a saint.

"We want to be heroes, we don’t really want to be saints. The difference between the heroic vision and the saintly vision is a fundamentally different way of viewing the purpose of life." 
 -Brian Zahnd

So as I sit down to write online again I have to ask myself: What's the point?

My hope is to spread hope. To remind folks that feel less than perfect, that probably won't step inside of a church that they are not alone. I try and fail everyday. Sometimes the most saintly action is getting back up and trying again.

I hope to connect with a loving Creator by trying to create...and reminding others that they can too.
Even if it's just to an audience of One.

Sorry if that was corny. Here's an intelligent quote about the difference between heroes and saints. Thanks for reading.

“For the hero the meaning of life is honor. For the saint the meaning of life is love. For the hero the goal of living is self-fulfillment, the achievement of personal excellence, and the recognition and admiration that making a signal contribution to one’s society through one’s achievements carries with it. For the saint, life does not so much have a goal, as a purpose, for which each human being is responsible, and that purpose is love, and the bonds of concern and care that responsibility for one’s fellow human beings carry with it. These two paradigms, the hero and the saint, and the way of life that descends from each, are really two fundamentally distinct and genuinely different visions of human society as a whole, and even of what it means to be a human being. They are two distinct and different ways of asking the question of the meaning of life.”
-Francis J. Ambrosio, Philosophy, Religion and the Meaning of Life


 
Picture*photo Credit http://superstock.com
My wife have this recurring joke about relationships. We call it "picking a car fight." 

A car fight happens when a couple is at a party or some public gathering and one half of the couple embarasses the other, or snaps at them. The couple goes through the rest of the public gathering with a tension building between them. Once the couple gets into their car and once they are on their way the tension erupts where neither can escape. This is universal. Every couple I know has experienced a car fights. Part of the game my wife and I play at parties is "spot the upcoming car fight". A man telling an embarrassing story about his wife. Check, that's going to be a car fight. Someone snaps at their spouse over an imagined slight. Check, that's going to be a car fight.

There's something about a long drive somewhere, when you don't have media blasting to distract you, or other people to put on a happy show for that leaves nothing but the raw emotion. Everything that has been simmering comes boiling over.

What about your relationship with God? What about when you're disappointed with Him? I know a "good Christian" isn't supposed talk about these things. But this is life. When He decides to remain silent for a season to teach you patience when you desperately need an answer. When He says "no" to something you feel like you need. When friends and family seem to turn their backs and you feel like God is silent too. What then?

About a month ago I had what can only be a car fight with God. So far 2013 had been a terrifically difficult year for my wife and I, financially, spiritually, with work, losing loved ones. You name it, it had been a struggle. And then the capper: my house flooded when we were on vacation. That morning I had met with a contractor before work to get an estimate on the first thing I needed to do before rebuilding walls, laying carpet. I need to waterproof the basement. I had prayed and hoped and begged for something reasonable. The estimate came in on a couple of thousand more than what the insurance had paid. Before doing anything else I was in the negative.

I thanked the contractor for his time. Told him I couldn't afford it at the moment and began my drive to work. While there in the car, I finally let all of the building frustrations of the past year out towards God. The straw had broken the camel's back. I told Him I felt let down, I felt abandoned. Like I had put my trust in Him and been put to shame. My tone became accusatory and angry. Frustrated tears streamed down my face and for the first time in a lifetime of belief I emptied my heart of every frustration, every disappointment, every time I had felt like He had let me down. I was no longer sweeping it under the rug and saying "Your will be done" and swallowing my disappointment. 

I talked and talked until I had run out of words. His gentle response still floors me to this day. That quiet, still small voice said to me...

 "Son, now I know that you truly love me."

I didn't just pack up and walk about away, I didn't ignore my hurts. But like one in a relationship with someone I truly love I had a car fight. I expressed every ugly and honest part of me. And God loved me anyway...and knew that I loved Him.

The man that the Bible calls "the man after God's own heart" was so brutally honest with his disappointments with God when he wrote the Psalms. That is what that moment was for me. A Psalm. A brutally ugly moment of honesty followed with "still you are my God and I will follow you."

I encourage you, have a real and honest relationship with God. Not just giving Him your best, but giving Him your worst as well. Because He wants all of you, honest and true. Write a psalm, give Him what you have been hiding from both Him and yourself. That moment was so healing for me and I'm betting it would be healing for you too.