The Element of Change

It has been a really long time since I last wrote! Many things have changed and today while waiting for my computer to install 13 updates before it will reboot (we're at 2 of 13 and it's taken 15 minutes to get that far), I find myself thinking about how I've let myself slip back into passivity.

I moved to Nashville almost a year ago. April 10th marks the day that the car pulled away from familiarity. The first few months here were hell. I felt like I was having an out of body experience as if I was watching my life but not participating in it. The best way that I can possibly describe it is a dreamlike state. Have you ever had a dream that feels so real but yet so inconceivable at the same time? You can feel the emotions, you can comprehend and understand who the people are around you, you sense who they are, but you can never fully see them. You know that it's them, everything in you tells you that it's them, you wake up and you even tell so and so that you had a dream with them in it, but yet in the dream, they are still hazy figures of the people that you know they are. Maybe your dreams aren't like that, but mine are and within my first few months here, my life was a haze. The only person that I fully saw was myself.

It's amazing how unfamiliar change (with a little help from adrenaline and a lot of help from God) can go from disconnection to extreme alertness. Hard times and tragedy bring even unbelievers to their knees at some point and for me, that's the case as well. God lifted the haze and provided the friends that I now hold dear and through them the encouragement that I needed.

Hurray right? Honestly, praise God, but because like everyone else I take good things for granted and when comfort comes so does passivity and complacency. These are two words that too often describe my spiritual life. Below is a very precise diagram.I am now in the midst of another change. From the start it is been a good change, but it's comfortable change and I have a choice to make. I can embrace this for all it's worth or I can idly sit by and just go through the motions. I know that this is an opportunity for God to reveal things about me that need to be altered, to learn how my life affects others, but so far, I feel as though I'm just comfortably sitting by and not letting myself be challenged. I want this change to be an alert change, not a hazy one. Most importantly I know that I need to make a choice to give this over to God and I know that he will guide me through everything. Pray for me.

I leave you with a quote from Brennan Manning (from the Signature of Jesus...a book that I've been reading for almost 2 years...I know, shameful).

"When we are seized by the power of great affection, we are empowered with the courage to risk"