Confessions

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing in the Bible belt when my mission field is with the hard hearts of the postmodern American culture. Preparation...I guess I am just learning the tools I need to be ready. When will training be over?Is it right to think that? Am I jumping the gun? If I am unwilling to go through the training then am I truly serious about the battle? Is it about their lives or is it about the exhilaration that I feel in the midst of my attempts to rescue them...It is so easy to flake out. It is easy to lose sight of the vision. It's easy to become perverted, lukewarm and complacent, blinded by the dreams of ambition and the pride of life. My creative faculties aren't for me. They're not for my name, my kingdom. They are for His name. His Kingdom. His glory. There is no other way to live. Yet I live in the backwards state every day. "Hey - those are my rights, my feelings, my desires that you just stepped on - watch it!" It's a little bit...ridiculous.Perfection...I would like it.Lately I wonder about my development and involvement at Teen Mania...what is it that I should be trying to learn and get out of these few years here? I have undergone so much change that I can hardly describe it. Yet, most of that change was a surprise. None of it was exactly what I expected to grow in. And discipline is no easy trick - I've learned that much. There is no sudden inspiration that makes staying motivated an easy thing. Only the understanding that there is something greater and worthwhile beyond it. Back to the subject of growth...should I be looking for a certain area of my life to be developed to a certain point, and then I will know that I am finished and done and ready for the next season in life?I feel sort of...I don't know...lost or out of place. I don't have the "next big thing" thing to guide me. I mean, the next big step in the little Teen Mania bubble world...going from intern to GI, GI to better GI (3rd year with a staff position), Better GI to Staff Associate with a real paycheck...what is next? I don't really care. Positions, titles...whatever. Maybe I'm a little jaded. I've realized that we don't reach these positions and titles because of our great works and accomplishments - I didn't "arrive" here, I got here by accident. I still don't think I'm all that great at what I do. But my bosses think I'm great, and that's why when I learn things, it's usually knowledge I accidentally pick up that they didn't mean to teach me - they aren't trying to develop me, I wouldn't expect them to. I'm an adult. I guess this is what it means to be an adult. No one to baby-feed you. No one to catch you when you fall. You pick up the bill yourself, and you can if you have worked hard and earned enough to make it. That's independence, in this life, in this culture. It's a bit of a challenge to embrace it and live in it but remember that I also belong to a different culture, one that counters this American way of living (not that all of it is bad), the Church. I forget that I have brothers and sisters who are just like me...fighting, struggling, imperfect, fallen. I have this tendency to think of everyone around me as having some sort of advantage or skill or talent that makes them better than me, or the opposite. I find my security in mitigating my imperfections by comparison to theirs. I make up relationships in my head through my daydreams and dialogues - my imagination supplements reality and I am the master of my own little world where vulnerability isn't necessary. It is so hard to show yourself to other people. That is the first step to loving...that is the thing that casts out fear...