Alone

The idea of being alone has been on my mind often in the last few weeks. I don’t mean alone in regards to being single, without a significant other. I don’t even mean being alone, by yourself, physically either. But alone. Alone in my thoughts, alone in my convictions. Alone in a room full of people. There have been conversations where something the other person would say would leave a part of me confused and wondering why all of a sudden, I didn’t know what to say for fear of contradicting them, for fear of being the minority in my thoughts. 

I’m often alone. This is how it seems and I’m beginning to accept that. This is far from a cry of pity, but a bold utterance of the state of my soul. I don’t want comfortable relationships. For too long, I’ve been okay with that. It’s time to grow up and dig past the green grass and the pretty foliage. I want to dig deeper, into the rich soil, down to the roots. I’ve avoided conversations that may test me, because I’m a highly sensitive person. I feel the feelings. I feel many of them. Because I am prideful, I don’t want to appear like an emotional mess. I am emotional—yes, but I am not a mess. I will cry. I have cried, for the things that I think are different from the majority.

I’m not called to a comfortable life. If you believe in Jesus and his death on the cross, you aren’t either. I know that I will have to leave what I’ve known all my life to move forward. Jesus says that we are blessed when people hate us and when they exclude us, and revile us. He tells us to go as far as rejoicing in these moments, because our reward is great in heaven.

There are so many stories and implications in the Bible that tell us that this place here is not our home. If we are comfortable in it, that’s a problem because we were not made for this world. We were made to be home with Him. 

As a believer, I am knowingly choosing to be critiqued, insulted and even hated. I don’t often get the question of how I can believe in God, when so many things in the world seem to be spiraling out of control. I’ve always chosen the route of loving people where they’re at. To me, this is the best way to show others the love of Christ. But in the deepest, deep, deep parts of me, I want more. I don’t know what that looks like or what that means. I’m just not satisfied.

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth."

If our minds are not set on heaven, our life on earth will look vastly different. The things that world calls important will become large in our minds, and shape the way that we live. 

In a world where life after death is not sure, people will live every day, ravenously seeking after pleasures and comfort in what this world has to offer. If the day of your death is approaching, and that is all you have to live, why not take all that you can, to enjoy all that you can, before your time is up?

I guarantee that you think this way, even if you believe in Jesus and in an eternal life, because I see the ways I think this way too. We are selfish people, and we want what we want. And there are lies that we believe all too easily that say that we deserve these things, it is our right, that it is far from wrong to just take what is in front of us if we want it. 

As Jesus is starting his time of ministry on earth and describing to his disciples what life looks like following him, he explains in three different ways that to be his follower is not easy and comfortable. It requires sacrifice, and an attitude that says we cannot rest our comfort on anything of this world. Not on our home, not on our work, not on our family. And those are three things that many would argue are important and worth living for. 

This is crazy. 

Who is God, that he would tell us to turn from everything we love to follow him? That his call is more important than our parents and our reputation? 

(to be continued)

7/9/15