For the past several months there has been an on going struggle that has been gripping me. Tonight I finally started to realize what it truly was I am having such a hard time over. What to be? It seems like such a basic question, one we even ask to elementary students (thought their answers will almost inevitably change). For me it has been everything from astronaut to paleontologist, Film writer/producer/director to missionary and they are all missing one thing from their answer. Who for, and it is of the utmost importance that this question should preface everything we look for and desire in our future.
There are three distinct answers for this question and I will dismiss the first one now. No one truly wants to live for themselves, there is always someone elses interests on their mind and in their heart. This leaves two more to choose from and its rather simple, actually the whole point of this post existing at all, be the world for someone or be someone for the world. Will we choose to be everything for a few close friends and family, or forgo that for the sake of being someone to change the world. My heart cries for the latter while my mind is only able to grasp the former. This is what has been tearing me apart and leaving me without answer.
So hard to sit here wondering, even fanaticizing, of a tomorrow without desiring so much to see it, to pray for it, and to live it out in faith despite skeptic chatter muttered from the world around us. Its so hard to sit there because of everything that would be forfeit, and for the people who wouldnt understand. Maybe there is a bit of nostalgia in my words as Im reminiscing my own graduation as I have been attending services for my younger brother, remembering how we thought we could change the world. So quickly we decided only to become it, and its astonishing.
How could that happen, are the speakers not motivating enough? are there not genuine hearts beating within us? are our desires for more, for better not truly genuine? are we not prepared for it? overwhelmed? I mean where would one start on being someone for the world, someone to bring change? Our feeblest human efforts always seem to not spread further then our arms can reach, as we raise our voices we simple become a wave upon the sea, unnoticeable to those on the ship or shore who would be saved be it for our words. They stay out of the water, out of our comforting arms, as they are the world for those within theirs. Hopelessness is the story written across the faces of those who want to change the world, for short is the reach of their arms.
Here is why Im torn, there is a world waiting for me full of people to love on and those I can be the world for. People, friends and future family that will welcome with open arms the heart of someone desiring to love on them. To hold them close, just daydreaming of it dampens my eyes. Then to imagine the world, a world changed and moved closer to God because of a life devoted to His creation, a creation not overlooked, people not left behind without a choice, to a world aided in preparation for tomorrow, and it is overwhelming. My heart flutters and my stomach sinks in awe of its possibility.
Yet we stand by, desiring to be the world rather then to serve it. Not out of a lack of heart, but out of a lacking of surrender and dependence on the Lord. Our hands are strong, our minds quick and we are brought up watching the fruits of our labor unfold. To be the world is to trust upon that understanding, and to miss the second step of education, to trust upon the hands and mind of the Lord over our own (enter our hands to surrender and our minds to dependence). This was Christs lesson for His believers, to trust in Him who DIED so that we may call upon his name in the throne room of our God. To be His eyes we must let go of our hands, to be his lips we must lean not on our own understanding, to be his healing touch we must keep our hands at our side, and to move His creation we must ask, go, wait in prayer, and praise Him as its done. This is what we are called to as Christians, there was no difference to the apostle Paul, and it is my prayer that there be none in me.
Our faith in Christ has given us everything to change the world, to be someone for the world… if we would only give up being the world we could see it.
Longing so much for the faith to give up everything I know,
~paul