It’s funny to me how we, (the created), tell God, (the Creator), exactly how we want our life to pan out. We do more than tell. We demand. We hand him the script and say GO before we take a second to listen. To ask ourselves the question, WHY? Why are we doing this to ourselves?
Human beings are silly. (And yes, I am one of them.) We live and breathe out of this place we like to call empowerment, independence, and control. But be honest with yourself. What kind of control do you really have over your life? Really?
Trust me, my intention is not to scare you. My plan for my readers and for myself is to constantly bring us back to the bigger picture, the bigger story. Really, to a place of humility. Raw Humility. There's nothing like it. I genuinely desire to draw you in to a higher power that is after your soul, that knows the timing of your ever breath, every heart beat. He paints pictures in the sky and gives color to the leaves and brings smiles to the faces of those around you until perhaps you finally pause and say,
"Wait. This is real."
How often do we want to be in charge until something goes wrong. But when that “something” plants its roots deep into our hearts and we experience pain of some sort, all of the sudden, it’s God’s fault. We point our finger to the sky and curse the Living God because He messed up our plan. What right does He have to intervene when things are going so well? These are the kinds of moments that turn so many people away from Jesus. He doesn't fix their problems the way they want Him to, so they get tired of waiting around and give up. They have waited at the bus stop at the crossroads of Pain and Shame and they finally decide to walk home. The bus isn't coming.
So many times I have stood at that bus stop. Waiting. Waiting to escape my pain, my misery, myself. I imagine myself standing in the heat of the day as I routinely check the status of my beat-up, modern-day "uncool" cell phone telling me the time I am afraid to learn. And I ask myself questions like, "How long do I wait?" "When do I give up and just walk home?" "When do I stop trusting the bus driver to show up and be the escape that I so desperately need?
In a way, I feel that we are always waiting on something in life... whether it be a person, a job, a degree, a sense of respect from our peers, a seal of approval from someone you love and trust. Perhaps we are waiting on the "right time to say the "right words" to someone the "right way".
Or maybe we are waiting to be free.
Whether we realize it or not, could we be, should we be waiting on freedom? Freedom from the expectations and demands we so easily place on ourselves? Freedom from the way we allow people to treat us because deep down, we think that is what we deserve?
Quite honestly, maybe we are wasting our time at the bus stop. Maybe what we are actually waiting on has already arrived in the form of a Savior: a living, breathing God who wants to wreck your life with a kindness so real it feels fake.
This is where my hope lies: He has already arrived.
