just being, not doing

Its getting harder. Being here. I was asked today if I was getting bored. Which hadn't even occurred to me, because I havent been bored here. But it triggered something. Some sense of uselessness. And I also realized that I had been filling my time. With baking, reading, movies, errands, conversations. All good things. But I haven't been with God. And this morning I had some time to sit down with him and it was a tough interaction. I was just mad. Not at him, at myself. Because I didn't want to be with him. I just wanted to be doing something. I always just want to be doing something. I project my feelings abut myself onto him all the time, and refuse to listen to who he says that I am (Beloved). This is what I wrote in my journal as sort of the dialogue I felt like we were having (what I imagine God saying is in italics)

What is your hope founded on?
You of course.
Is it?
How you use me.
That's your biggest concern. What if I don't use you? What if I just love you? Is that enough? What if I say lay prostrate before me for 40 days? What if I say spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness? What if I say, like I said to Moses, "this is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Issac, to Jacob, I will give it to your offspring. I have let you see it with out eyes but you shall not go there." So Moses, my servant, died on that mountain and that was my will.
Am I still good? Is the cross stripped of its power when you don't feel like I am using you in miraculous ways?What is your faith based on, you or me?
What if I want to be impressive?
I'll tell you right now that's a bottomless pit. Because no matter how impressed people are, and they will be impressed, its never going to be enough for you. And you are your own harshest critic.
I am already satisfied with you. I have been satisfied since before you are born and I will be in love with you for all of eternity that you stand in my presence and nothing can ever take that away. Ever ever ever. My mercy is new every morning.

And I was thinking about Jesus and how he was so darn normal. He ate and he slept and he prayed and he walked. And honestly, if my ministry looked like his, I would probably be looking for more. THAN JESUS. Already, I am. I'm 18 years old. There is nothing about Jesus's teen years or his twenties. What was even doing then? Being unnoticed. A normal Jewish son. Not mission trips. Not ministry. Well, again, I have some strange formula I use to determine what is and isn't ministry. Hanging out with high schoolers is and my grandparents isnt. Shoveling is and baking isn't. Being with Haitians is and Americans isnt. And its not until I write this that I start to see that it makes no sense and that it is not of God. And that it will harm me to live like this. And take me away from Him.

I had all these plans to do urban ministry and they worked out. I found an organization that would let me volunteer every day. But on the car ride back I realized I couldn't. I couldn't just go and go because then I would neglect the opportunity to write, think about Haiti, stay in touch with people I am already in relationships with, and wrestle with this obsession with serving the poor. Because even that can become idolatry. And it means I am using them to earn something I already have, Gods favor. But that is not loving. And same with the kids I could be volunteering with. The last thing urban kids need is someone who wants to hang out with them for a week. We each have to find the people in our little worlds that we can say, hey, Im here for life. For the good times and the bad, not for you to act a certain way, or get to a certain place in your life, but I am just going to be here. I love you. And I really think that is the most powerful way to share the gospel. Because essentially that's what Jesus says to us. I'm here forever. Regardless of how you feel about me, I still want you. I still want to share life with you. Enough that I came all the way down to live life with you. And then I died that we can be together forever. That's powerful stuff.