Stages of Me

A couple of days ago I was asked by a real deep teen about identity. They wanted to know about sharing their real selves to people, and the fear of rejection. At the time I was stump at what to say. Because she was right not everyone can or will accept the true selves within; the selves that God created. We are called as Christians to be that person that God created and not to be phony. But it is not that simple.

We have been made unique, individual, special and deep people. And there are things about us that are different, unique and individual about us. And because of this not everyone can understand us, because they are different, unique, and individual. So not everyone can understand everyone.

Also because we are individual, special, unique, and have different experiences, different things excite us, surprise us, and scare us. So it is impossible to assume that everyone will understand us, even within the same faith community. I have different friends that understand different parts of me. I have one friend that I talk a lot about soccer with, and one that I play video games with, does that mean that I am being fake with both of them, because I am not sharing my whole self with both of them. Well of course not.

So, why do we have a hard time seeing this when it comes the deeper sides of ourselves? Well the only answer I got is that we complicate it. Let me explain. I have heard the onion idea, where we are at the center and have different levels that we build up to protect ourselves. I have decided I don’t like this idea, I have another idea.

I have a bunch of friends, some I talk about different things I do, some I talk about what I believe that some I talk about myself. I display different levels of who I am with different people. Just because I just talk about soccer with one of my friends does no mean that I am not being myself.

So I think we are like onions but that each level is simply another level of who we are. We are the entire onion. But we choose to show different levels to different people, because each person is different. The difficulty is in knowing which level to show what person (but I will leave that for another day).

Yes we do do things that are not truly who we are, and we do this to protect ourselves. But I suggest that instead of displaying someone we are not, instead for protective reasons we should show different levels of ourselves.

I mean, let me talk to you about soccer, and when I feel comfortable I will talk to you school, and when I feel comfortable I will talk about what I believe, and when I am comfortable I will tell you why I believe and when I am comfortable I will talk to you about my struggles, and when I am comfortable I will talk to you about my success, and when I am comfortable I will show you my failures. It is okay to hide parts of ourselves from others, actually it is biblical “guard your heart because it is the off-spring of life”.

But even with all this, you need to be true in all you do. You need to be yourself (even if you haven’t figured out exactly what that means), no matter what level you share. I mean I will talk about soccer without excitement, because soccer excites me.

We need to guard ourselves so that God can strengthen us, and so that the people around us can be used by God. Share but realize who you are sharing with. Guarding our hearts and the way we share ourselves with others, understanding this is at the heart of a life of worship.

Consistency

Hey everyone,
Well at this point everyone seems to be limited to my faithful friends the Barrett girls. That's ok I can deal. I have great plans for you, plans for you to prosper.
Well I am working on a couple of topics to share about but they aren't quite ready yet. Now I coul dmake them ready, but for some reason I am completly unmotivated to do so. You see I feel unmotivated to do pretty much anything right now. I am I kind of person that when one thing is not quite right then nothing is quite right. I am a all or nothing type of person. Which is why everything I do is intensified, I am extreme, in faith, in school, with friends and within leadership roles. This can be a good thing but it can also be distructive. Because I can be extreme in a good sence or extreme in a bad sense. beginning to see the problem. I have a paper due in about 45 minutes and it is no where close to being finished. And instead of doing it I am kicked up into extreme denial mode.
This extreme thing also affects my life of worship. I just got off an incredible retreat weekend, where I deepend some friendships and made some new. I was pumped up with the Holy Spirit and felt a calling of leadership to minster. I had a blast. Now I got to spend alot of time in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and while living in this small area for a couple of days my faith was in extreme mode. But that is the problem. Just because I am on a weekend should not mean that my faith increases or decrease, it should remain constant.
I am beginning to see and learn that consistency in my actions are important, that the extreme ends I seamed to live are destructive. Now I think it is time to be consistent and get some work done, enough to be able to hold on, without making it easy to become inconsistent.
Living consistently (Psalm 51:10), that is at the heart of a life of Worship.

Sometimes it is good to give up

Alright as you can see I haven't been doing this whole bloging thing very well. This is actually my second attempt at a blog, and it doesn't seem to be going well. The last time it didn't work I gave up and started a new one. I thought about doing that again, but I changed my mind. I think instead I need to follow through on my original commitment to share my triumph and struggles when it comes to my attempt at a life of worship.
We all give up sometimes. Sometimes it is a good thing to give up, other times its not. For example on a damaging relationship can be healing, other times we need to keep going and fix that relationship. The trick is to know at what point do we stop trying and give up. Now I am not in any way claiming that I know that point, but I have experienced that point recently in my life and it wasn't easy.
I had a friend who I loved sincerly. I saw greatness in them and really wanted them to continue to grow. I pushed them to grow and expand within their faith. Problems occured when I made a mistake in my own life. Originally this person did not see it as a mistake, but quickyl changed their mind as I began explaining the wrong in my action. Instead of forgiveness, disapointment came into play. Now this offence was not directed to this person but I injured them none the less by not living up to what I was holding them to.
This offence as been forgiven by God a long time ago, but my friend could not let go of it. For me it felt that everything I did was being judged by the mistake that I made. This hurt me because instead of felling forgiven and being able to move on and grow in my faith and life, I was being put down and made to feel guilty over and over again. Guilty does not help you move on and dwelling in guilt does not allw a person to feel like they have been forgiven. Being stuck I could not grow. Everytime I felt good again, felt like I had been forgiven and could move on I would get a look or a comment, and I would relive the pain and the guilt.
I finally decided I needed to do something about it, and I made sure that this person realized my discontent. After a confrontation with this person I decided to give them a second chance. I let go all the hurt and pain and judgement. I talked to God asking Him to help our friendship so that we could once again trust and learning from each other. I was once again disapointed and hurt.
This time I realized that my relationship with God was actually being hindered by the friendship that I had. I could not freely be freed from this sin if I was in constant judgement from someone I thought cared about me. I decided to give up. That is I gave it up to God. I let go of this persons judgements, trust, and painful encounters. I gave this person up to God knowing that I no longer could teach them and that they could no longer teach me. Instead of raising me to Christ my friend was dragging me down.
I no longer consider this person a friend, but I still pray for them. This decision has actually brought peace to me. I feel like I have made the right decision, and the guilt that I have felt is gone, and I feel strong enough to no longer have a need to relive it. I feel more dependant on God because of it. Now I am pretty sure that this person will not read this blog (I don't think they would take the time to do so), but if by chance they do; I am sorry that we are no longer friends, but I needed to do this. I hope that one day we can be reconciled, but for the sake of my own needs and faith, there are something you need to do first.
To live a life of worship we need to cut off the things that bring us down. Like a rose bush that needs to be pruned in order to grow. Throwing off what hinders our faith (Hebrews 12:1): that is living a life of worship.