The answer

The answer is prayer. Unending, relentless prayer. Through prayer and the word nothing is impossible. I'm gonna try it and see what happens.

Beautiful brokeness

Last night I went to pray, and just to try it, I prayed on my knees. I hardly ever do that, I don't think that anyone has to, but it does focus you. You're down there for no other reason than to cry out to God. I started praying about everything I am going through, with work, with school, trying to provide a good life for my family, not having a car. I thought about how my parents had set me up for success, and how ungrateful I was. I started crying for my wasted years, how my sinfulness had set me back in life. As I lay there broken before God, sobbing like the sad man that I was, it felt right. It felt good to fall apart before God.

Fight or flight

In every trial, every hardship, we have a choice to make. We can fight it, fight our way through it; or we can run away. It's up to us, it's up to me. You have to know that you know who you are, and be that person.

New Years Day

So, while I must admit that wallowing in the mire of my own despair is quite fun, there comes a moment when Satan has overstayed his welcome in my head. So I am asking the Lord for an eviction notice. I realized that if work is so terrible, then I can quit. If school is so hopeless, then I can drop out. If I can't handle the pressure of raising a family, I can always do what my father did and walk out on them. Okay, scratch that last bit. I can hardly handle a four day business trip away from my family. But you get my point.
What I am attempting is hard, very hard. It's not easy to go back to school at age thirty, with a wife and three very small children, and work full time. That however, is precisely what I am going to do.
       Think of today as a sort of new years day. My resolution? To allow myself to be human, to make mistakes, to settle for nothing less than all I have to give. To be in the Word at least twice a day, set aside time to pray twice a day. To do my best at work, to follow the companies values and culture to the letter. To work along side of my wife to get us in shape to run a 5k race together, and get our bodies back. To become a student, and do the best that I can in my studies.   My number one resolution is to stop trying to go it alone. I wait far to long to reach out for help, and that has to stop . I will never reach the heights that I have envisioned in my heart by putting on a one man show. It's gonna take me awhile to make that happen, I don't trust people.
By the grace of God I will change, I have to. I can't stay where I am in life, I'll end up killing myself if I do. God has to become the reason that I live and breathe, He must become my portion, He has to be enough. Because if this life is all there is, I have absolutely no interest in sticking it out on this worthless planet.

Runaway Heart

So I was thinking about what my problem is, underneath it all. Yes I know that I need to snap out of it, but why do I know what needs to be done, and yet have such a hard time doing it? Why can I say all the right things to myself but the words have no effect on me? Because I've lost heart. My heart's not in my work, that's why I can understand my job intellectually but have no passion, no drive. I desire to compete in fencing but take no joy in pursuing it anymore. My dreams stir my soul but when I wake up my soul cannot even rise from it's bed. That's why I prefer to be busy. For if I slow down, I have time to contemplate, and contemplation brings misery.
The last few years have not only been dry spiritually, but I have moved from a work environment that brought occasional joy to one that holds little to none. I failed to achieve two dreams that have been on my heart (fire dept. and military), I lost my favorite bible, I wonder if I'll ever recover from it. I wrecked my lovely little car after I paid it off. Every day is a struggle just to put one foot in front of the other. I can think of all kinds of inspirational things to say, but it doesn't last. By morning I'm depressed again.
     So, now that I know that I've lost my heart, how do I get it back? How do I learn to face each day with joy, and stop fantasizing about hiding in a closet all day? What happened to adventure? What happened to living for more than just to pay the bills? I don't know what to do or where to start.
I guess I'll pray.

Another complaint

I looked  in the mirror today, and did't like what I saw. It's not that I'm fat, but I am becoming pudgy. I know this is supposed to be about my spiritual journey, but it's just one more area that I'm dissatisfied. I hate the fact that I'm no longer in top shape.

If I were to read this, I would think, "What a baby, if you don't like your life, change it!" I know right? You know what's sad? I have almost no motivation to actually make a change. Serious change requires sacrifice, and I don't  want to make any more sacrifices. I make enough for my family and my job. So when I don't have to make sacrifices for them I don't want to do anything. For example, I'm fatter than I want to be, have been for some time. What have I done about it? Nothing. I'm not as focused on pursuing God as I want to be. What have I done? Nothing, only a weak attempt at starting a bible reading plan.
As you can see, I need to snap out of it, fast.

Valuing the Word

I don't value the Word of God. I say I do, I want to, but my actions and my life do not say that I delight in the Word. I'm not as exited about digging into the word of God as I am about the new Transformers movie coming out on DVD. When that comes out I'm going to rent it, watch it with my wife and my boys, maybe have people over. I'll talk about it at work, maybe even at school. Heck, I talk about fencing and ballet more than I do the word of God. My life doesn't revolve around prayer, studying the word, and worship. But what else in there if not that? I have very little personal integrity. I am not the man I claim to be, and this truth is starting to eat me up. When will this be real? Do I just decide that God's word is that important, or is there an actual moment when it excites me? I never had to try to love fencing, and I only had to try Ballet to fall in love with it. As soon as I laid eyes on my children there was love in my heart. I see a good fight, and something stirs in my soul. Why doesn't this happen when I crack open the word of God? Maybe I don't fully understand what it is. I need a revelation of the word of God, not just an intellectual understanding, but I need to see this with my heart. I need this to be real.

To change the world

             I am finding as I grow older, and concerns about friends and family begin to crowd upon my mind, that I no longer envision the standard super hero as the means to make an impact on the world, as their influence is limited, they merely solve the big world ending problems, but are always useless in day to day life. Now men such as the Carleones, Hunter Rose, Al Capone, that guy from American Gangster, the Luthors of the world, villains in their own right, yet with the power and influence to make an impact on the communities they live in. The gangsters of the prohibition era were men that I want to join the ranks of, but from a Christian perspective. I have no idea how to go about that, I have spent my time learning about individual prowess, not about running an empire. Clearly I have work to do. Is a Christian even supposed to have that kind of power? Where does God stand on that kind of thing? Why is the church such a weak voice in the community? Why are we not the go to people? Do we/I even know how to be/ raise up such men? I would like to think that somewhere, hidden in the depths of our DNA is the blueprint to make such men again, that the same genius that spawns evil is available to those who call Jesus Lord and Savior. But what if I'm wrong? What if the only way to become the kind of man that I envision is to embrace that darker side of ourselves? Would I break the law, steal, kill ruin the lives of innocent people in order to provide safety and security to my family? In theory I believe that I could. I want them provided for, when I see the hurt and pain in those around me I get so angry. I wish that I had the power to make them safe, to be the strength they need me to be, to stop those who would hurt them. But not by flying around in the dark, but by being a man who inspires change.

A dream

I dreamt that I was trying to get across a bridge to go to work, and it was raining very hard, and the water was coming over the bridge. Suddenly everything froze, and that water turned into snow. I was trying to swim through the snow, and my friend was trying to help push me through.

The problem with church

For many of you, the first thing you may suggest to a person like myself who declares that he is lost, would be to declare that I need to visit your church. You may even suggest that I follow the ABC's to salvation. If I could , I probably would visit your church. I would like the pastor. But at the end of the day it's still a church, and that's the problem. People say that the church is like a hospital, and I agree. That's precisely what I don't like about it. I hate hospitals, they have no idea what's really wrong with you, they just stop the symptoms. I also see church as an entertainment venue, where we go in, sing along with worship, listen to a sermon, and go home to watch football. Our society, our lives are built around watching, being a spectator. I watch people dance, have adventures, fight for something meaningful, and change the world. I then pontificate about it and think that I have done a good thing. I do the same thing at church. I go, participate in worship, listen halfheartedly to a sermon (often I'm doing my own bible study during this time because I'm getting nothing) and leave more empty than I went in. They say you get out of it what you put in. I tried that, if you pour water into sand, you don't get more water.
I'm sure you're thinking, "That's an awful thing to say, why would you not want to go to church?" Because I don't need another church telling me how to look righteous, and then condemning anything that I may do that doesn't conform to their culture. I don't need another church, another program, or another agenda. I need to encounter the God I read about in the bible, I need to find Him, and find the courage to live like I believe that He's real in the world that I live in.

Awake

I have realized that I am lost, and I am finally awake to how far I am from who i want to be. This is an attempt at  finding my way. I may give up after a few weeks. Or days.