That Blessed Hope.

"Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed."

For the most part everything has been great here. Maybe in my next post I'll update you all on school, job, and housing. But overall I'm really happy with the situations of life. In that respect everything kind of came together like it needed to. In fact, things have worked out just as they needed to in order for me to get here. But other then 'situational' things, there are other aspects of life down here that are really hard. The biggest problem that I am running into is that I have no friends. Most nights are spent by myself with my guitar trying to pick out bluegrass songs. I thought that I was lonely last semester, but I realize now how blessed I was to live with two awesome Godly guys. I'm pretty lonely here actually. Very lonely.

If you don't know me very well you won't know this, but I'm totally a community guy. I love everything about community (even the disagreements). I get energized being around people, or more specifically interacting with people. I don't interact much here. At first I thought it would be pretty sweet to go to a school that has like a 80% female population. It stops being cool when you realize that they all are married or have boyfriends....thats awkward....Anyway, I find it really hard to just invite myself over to hang out with girls single or not.

Anyway, so I'm lonely right? That affects every avenue of my life. When I spend to much time by myself I start wanting to not be around people and it's a vicious circle into loneliness. And whats worse is that I tell myself how much different things should be. I should have a girlfriend, I should have a church family, I should be in with all the profs at school. And I have none of that. So, I'm realizing to not look at my circumstances and instead look at the Lord. When I read verses like the one above I get really excited. Verses like that pull me out of my loneliness and remind me of the hope that I have in Christ. And I should be anxiously be waiting in expectation of Him coming to get me one day. HE is all I need. I might not have all these other things, but I have Him and He satisfies.

Greater things then these.

Being in a new place is always interesting. Me, I don't care for new places much. I'm not really fond of change to say the least. Like every person, I'm sure, I'm not a big fan of change. Probably the aspect of change that I dislike the most is the loneliness. I was pondering the other night about how change brings with it a lot of loneliness. Think about it, change represents going from what is known to what is unknown. From old to new. That could be both good and bad I suppose. If you are in a bad situation, like an addiction, change represents something good. But I'd imagine that even good change is scary. Anyway, I'm kind of getting away from what I wanted to say.

That is; that loneliness breeds self-centeredness and selfishness. God gave me a clear picture of this a few days ago. I was having a fit of loneliness. It was one of those days that as soon as I woke up I could sense that the devil was going to try just a little bit harder. You know what I mean? I was just unhappy. It had to do with the fact that I haven't gone out and been with actual people HANGING out in who knows when. I was having a pity party based around that I perceived my life isn't the way that I wanted it to be. It wasn't so much a my plan vs God's plan thing, but more that I'm not happy with God's plan. In fact, and I'm kind of embarrassed to say this, I even took time to write down every single detail that I was not happy with. Both things that I would 'add' to my life and things I would get rid of. I got a whole page, single spaced, and I'm not happy about that. But right then I didn't care. I think I moved on eventually being mad at God and drowning my tears in the opiate for the masses that is facebook (if you are on facebook you know that is no exaggeration). I went to bed and eventually woke up the next day. As usual I wasn't nearly as bothered about it in the morning so I just up it in the back of my mind. Then Sunday church came.

I'm not quite sure if I am going to stay at this church or not, but I have never in my life heard a sermon preached that felt more like it was talking to me. I'm not a big fan of this kind of thinking generally, but it's hard for me to deny this one. The passage the pastor spoke on was John 1 (which ironically I had just read in my devotions a few days prior...). The part that spoke to me was John 1:50-51. It reads this way,

"The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth,the son of Joseph." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (ESV, emphasis mine.)

The pastor gave the normal exposition of scripture and then he brought up something that I thought was very insightful. The reason he, the pastor, proposed that Jesus said that last bit there, was to get Nathanael to see beyond himself. And I think thats the goal of Jesus (well one of them) for our lives; to see beyond ourselves. God's plan is so much bigger then just me. So much of my time is consumed with self focused, me situation thinking that I think it borders on sin. And it certainly should not be our focus. It wasn't God's focus. I think I sometimes fall into thinking that it was Jesus' focus though. Like 'Jesus came to save me' right? I think there is some truth to that, but like most things, it's not that simple or easy. Anyway, I'm getting off topic again...

So in reflection, it's funny how being lonely feeds self-centeredness and being self centered leads to loneliness. The more lonely I get the more I look at my life, my problems, my situation. The more 'me' focused I become the more being 'God' focused loses value. Which is sad, because when you I take away God from my life I don't like whats left.