I Struggle

Because of his Lordship, my goals, desires, and perspectives have evolved.  Not that I didn’t see change when I was a teenager.  Sometimes I wonder if my journey is similar to that of Jacob, who needed several decades to become a patriarch after making his first commitment in Bethel.

I sense that life has been a journey downstream in a rowboat.  I can’t see where I am headed, but I can see God’s intervention in my past.  Sometimes I feel like I am alone in the rowboat, but sometimes I feel that God has put my wife or a friend in it with me at just the right time.

I struggle.  I perceive a generation that has become more fearful, hateful, and partisan.  This generation closes its eyes, willfully listening to false stories and distractions. 

This generation intersects my campus through media, social media, and the people they have encountered.  I perceive a generation in desperate need of something real, something true, and something to hope in, especially when the people they look up to fail to measure up.

I am uncertain where the boundary is between being faithful and mentoring or proselytizing.  I am overwhelmed by the number of lost people with whom I have no idea how to have a meaningful relationship.  I am troubled because I feel that I have been idle.  I am not always sure for what I hope.

My only recourse is to pray.  Pray for grace and mercy on the people I meet, pray for the Holy Spirit to do a new thing, pray for the Father’s guidance and wisdom.  Sometimes I pray for divine intervention and a healing touch to bring people and society in line with his will.  Sometimes I just pray that God would hurry back and bring his justice and discernment.  I am not sure how to be the salt and light Jesus is calling me to be.

I struggle.  It’s not just around where I work, but the struggle is multi-faceted across the breadth of who I am as an individual.  My priorities changed in work, but they have also morphed around all my life.  How can I be a better husband, how can I be a better father…?  Should I have more children?  Fostering other people’s children isn’t for the faint of heart, but I feel drawn into it.

How do I stay connected to the Father?  How do my joys and passions fit on this journey with which God has blessed me? How do I love my spouse as Christ loved the church?  How do I love my neighbor as I love myself?

There hasn’t been a simple answer that works for any area of my life.  My work life shares a boundary with my family life and a boundary with how I interact with others.  Each solution tends to borrow from another area, and it is hard to find balance. 

I wrestle with these things, and like Jacob, I may come out with a limp.  However, I know that I have been blessed.