Old Friend - Intro

Part One - For the sake of accountability, I'm going to try to update this every Saturday with the journey to better know Him through asking these hard questions.  Praying for Truth, every moment of every day.

I feel like I'm coming home to an old friend with open arms, somone peaceful and calm in the middle of cold, dreary weather.  I've missed writing.  I've missed the intimacy with Jesus that I find when I pour out life onto a page.  There's been a lot of life lately.  A lot of color, joy, beauty, and ugliness; the full spectrum of grays translating over into reds and orange and flowing back to yellow and soft hues of blue. 

I miss a lot.  I miss the students.  It was like I was on summer break with them, which is actually kinda cool because I would've never otherwise remembered it was summer.  And now fall - or is this fall?  Its cold and wet and rainy outside.  Kinda reminds me of winter last year... but I digress.  And now I just ordered my material for small groups to the correct address (the joys of moving - finally), and those college girls are a joy.  Loving them and living life with them is such a blessing; they have no idea.  And on top of all the life that God chooses to give, He's blessed me with sweet relationships.  Beautiful friendships that I treasure more than I ever realized I would, and friends who build me up in Christ and speak truth to me and with whom I can be completely transparent with no guards up, no walls.  It's hard to switch in and out of worlds where no one really has time to see your heart, or understand your passion, or care about deep, below-surface-level community together. 

Time.  Its the one thing I used to have that does not exist anymore.  And as much as I want to blame my job; as much as I want to get so frustrated that my workload gets bigger and bigger, quitting my job would only be a temporary fix, because before I know it, I'll fill my time up again with even more things that don't matter.  I'll get really busy for the sake of "ministry," or whatever else it is, and miss my God all over again.  So I label my life, place difference pieces as more important, more convenient ways to get to God, and still miss Him. 

I am asking myself a lot of hard questions right now, and the journey is beginning to be intentional about taking them before Jesus and in spite of the uncertainty, knowing Him.  I want to document this journey, and know that here, in October of 2011, God started the preparation for something bigger, and the vision for something greater than myself. 

So please share it.  Please know that its a joy and an honor to share this with you.  And its a beautiful thing to have community here in Northern Virginia, where God has placed me for such a time as this. 

But I ask Him every day, and search for answers every day, and the same activity goes on and on in my head and I look at the people around me every day and wonder what I'm doing here. 
Am I really called? 
Am I really just miserable in my circumstances right now and looking for a way out, and do I have the audacity to use the excuse of "ministry" as a reason to quit? 
Do I really just miss God so much that I think ministry will solve my problems of spending time with him? 
Am I so intimidated by what the world thinks of me that I'm really just too scared to face teh disappointed faces? 
Am I scared of money, or the lack of it? 
How do I know God, what do I do? 
How is this time of molding and shaping something He can possibly use to bring Himself glory when I struggle every day to just spend time with Him? 
How do I get to know my Jesus better, and love the people I work with, and love the students and be a good friend, a good girlfriend, a good daughter, sister, human being, when my life is swallowed by things I', not passionate about? 
How can He possibly use that to His glory? 
And why won't He just let me quit?

Hard questions.  So I write them out and I process them as best I can, and I get back to work.  And I drive through traffic every day, stare at a screen, and get back to them later when I have time. 

What if I stay so busy to purposefully ignore the answers? 

There's comfort in writing.  There's comfort in knowing the voice of my God is still here, and His hands are holding me, even though I am the least of these.  He has told me so many things lately.  I'm learning to say "no" to over-committing myself.  I'm learning to wait on Him and trust Him. I'm finding there's a huge difference between knowing God intimately and trusting Him.  Intimacy feels safe, its this place of rest in the middle of the storm.  Trust happens when the feeling isnt there, and all the comfort in the world can't seem to be found.  I think.

He has given me so many words of truth: "I'm preparing you," "Learn to say 'no,'" "Know Me - simply just know Me," and my favorite: "My plans are best for you."  He has the best plans for me, and all I have to do is trust that.  Let this worry go.  Let these fears of failing on so many different fronts be nailed to the cross of my Jesus and simply know Love, know The Way. 

How do you become so desparate for Christ, for this massive blanket of supernatural love that you'd give up everything?  I think what's worse is getting to that point but having no direction to follow.  Give up everything, then what? 
Where do I go from there, and why? 

He is faithful to me.  He is love and rest and peace to me, and He has given me writing as a gift to unwrap all these deep, dark, horrifying questions that I may not want to know the answer to, and one by one, begin to seek Him.  Not what He can give me as an answer, but Him. 

He is enough.  He is the old friend to whom I am returning.

Psalm 107:43 - Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.