Finding Momentum

Happy new year!

Last night I spent a good amount of time look­ing back at my jour­nal and saw a few threads that ran through last year:

If 2011 was a year of risk-taking, then 2012, I’ve summed up, was a build­ing year, a year to build a rhythm and estab­lish a flow. It was a full year at Blurb, com­mut­ing back and forth from SF. Keep­ing up the same rou­tine at Regen. Stephen Min­istry on Mon­days, Cir­cuit train­ing Tues­days, Wednes­day morn­ings with Jeff, home group on Thurs­days, Sat­ur­day morn­ing runs, Sun­days with Betty. Rou­tine and rhythm. It can be good for you.

Know­ing who I am, build­ing a flow can be some­thing to set­tle into but the risk is that I can get too com­fort­able.  But I found myself up against the real­ity that your ideals often have a hard time match­ing up to your real­ity. So on a seri­ous note, last year was also the first year that I felt like I was just… coast­ing. And it felt hor­ri­ble, the thought and feel­ing that the kind of life I should have been liv­ing should be filled with more risk, more Jesus + his pres­ence. I’m learn­ing that I can often­times fall into rou­tine and for­get myself and why I’m here.

There was a sea­son — I remem­ber it well — last year when I sat down and wrote down every­thing I was feel­ing — frus­tra­tion with my life, hon­est doubts about my pur­pose and my faith and a slew of ques­tions for God or Jesus or who­ever it was that was over­see­ing my life. Life in Christ is filled with joy, right? Then why wasn’t I feel­ing it? I was tempted to give it all up again.

The inter­sec­tion of your faith and your daily life can dis­con­nect some­times, and things had derailed for a long time before I noticed it. The cyn­i­cism was sub­tle, but would crawl into things and inner dia­logues. It would rebel against pat answers I saw peo­ple giv­ing around me, or the cul­tural dis­con­nects I’d see between the church and Real Life, and a bro­ken world.

The burnout was pal­pa­ble, but here’s the thing: it was some­thing that I didn’t do any­thing about. I kept up the same rou­tines, held the same smiles and had the same answers. But inside there was a gnaw­ing ques­tion that reap­pears from time to time: what is real about my life? Where was that sense that the world is on the brink of some­thing glo­ri­ous that I felt so often when I was younger–when things had a surety about them, and answers were more black and white, and joy was real because you were laugh­ing, too? What about the inter­sec­tion of dirt & the divine, mir­a­cles I used to see, or evi­dence of the super­nat­ural? Where does that stuff just go when you’ve lived with­out them for so long?

Talk­ing to Jeff, I was reminded that the times I felt alive in Christ were the times I was tak­ing risks. So a lot of last year was about ask­ing myself — where am I going? Where are places I can grow and risks that I can take? And there were a few themes: liv­ing in Oak­land, iden­ti­fy­ing with the bro­ken, friend­ships and broth­ers, youth & com­mu­nity, silence & solitude.

To be hon­est, a lot of that has not mate­ri­al­ized, and a lot of that were gushy ideas lack­ing struc­ture and thought and a strong heart.

God, I want that for this year. I want more faith, more expe­ri­ences of your grace. I want courage to fight for peo­ple I love and defend the things I believe in (and vice versa). I want to run toward con­flict instead of away from it. I want a stronger, more com­pas­sion­ate heart, and I want to run with peo­ple that show that too. But I mainly want to sense your near­ness and know you with the famil­iar­ity of a son.