Let me be honest.
Today I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A few thoughts on it (all which pertain to my spiritual life of the past month).
Let me give you a brief summary of the movie. These two people fall in love (Joel and Clementine), but their relationship grows stale and they both eventually start to dislike each other. Clementine is a very impulsive, bitchy lady who goes to a clinic called Lucanae to get every memory of Joel erased from her mind (this is after she and Joel split up). Joel finds out about this, and in his depression, he decides to do the same thing (erase Clementine from his memory). During the process of Joel's memories of Clementine getting erased, he decides he doesn't want all of the memories to be erased of her, because he loves her so much. I know, it's confusing, and if you've never seen the movie, you won't understand anything I just typed. But... basically, Joel is walking around in his brain trying to escape the process that's erasing Clementine (he's asleep during this process and can't stop the process physically, so he has to do it mentally). Anyway... here's where my thoughts come in:
There's a part in the movie when Joel is trying to chase after Clementine in one of his memories of her. Because she's getting erased, he can't quite catch up to her. He parks his car on the corner of a block and runs toward Clementine, but the road he's running down ends up bringing him back to where he started. He doesn't go in a circle, he just runs a few yards down the street, and then he's back to where he started. He turns around and sees Clementine still walking down the street. He goes to run after her, but again he finds he's back to his car. He turns around again to see Clementine walking down the street... he can't get to her because he keeps going back to where he started. I don't think this needs much explanation, but I feel that's how God is. We can see Him, and when we start to chase after Him, we find we're back where we started... at least I do. There seems to be no success in any of the issues I face. I know that a way to measure spiritual growth is how we resist sin, but what happens when we don't do much resisting? Like, yeah, obviously the "major" issues are easy to resist, but these small battles that seem completely useless to fight are just constantly dancing around in my head. I try and do the best I can... or, I let Jesus do it (whatever that even means), and I find that I'm still thinking the same thoughts (no matter how much I submit my mind to Christ). I'm saying all of this, because nobody is talking about these things. We can read books that submit the answers to our problems in these nice packages, but those packages don't always work for everyone. If your life is completely easy to fix, then these packaged answers are for you, but something I've been realizing about myself is, what works for most people doesn't work for me... no exceptions. And, none of this psychological bullshit about "everyone thinking they're unique," because that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying, to the average Christian, it might be really easy to settle certain issues, but I'm not the average Christian, and I refuse to pretend that everything is under the blood of Jesus and going real smoothly, because it isn't. I keep running, but I find I'm back at the same place.
Secondly, sometimes in my futile attempts to get close to God, I feel like I'm going to completely crazy. Like, I get headaches and stress about certain issues, because they don't get resolved. I struggle with my identity because of Christ. I'm going through a teenage rebellion in my 20's because I never went through one when I was a teenager (I seemed to do it in my early teens, but not after 14). I'm not going through it because I think I need to, but because I'm questioning so much right now, and in my questioning, it's labeled as "rebelling." This doesn't mean I'm getting completely trashed and sleeping with all these people... it just means I'm rebelling against what I've been taught. I don't think there's a lot of harm in that, because God refuses to leave me alone. Here's where the second point comes in... sometimes I wish I could erase God. Not Him completely, but just certain things I think about Him. Because, let me be honest, a lot of the stuff I think about Him probably isn't true. Most of my thoughts of Him are Biblical, but a lot of them are completely shallow, empty thoughts that need to be erased. These few thoughts are the ones that are turning my stumbling blocks into mountains. No matter how much I get frustrated and want to escape Him, I'm reminded of an amazing lyric by Sufjan Stevens:
If you want, He will take you
If you run, He will chase you
Because He is the Lord
No matter how much I run or think or pray or give up... He will chase me, because I am His beloved and He is my father with everlasting arms.
Really... do missionaries think this way?
Let me give you a brief summary of the movie. These two people fall in love (Joel and Clementine), but their relationship grows stale and they both eventually start to dislike each other. Clementine is a very impulsive, bitchy lady who goes to a clinic called Lucanae to get every memory of Joel erased from her mind (this is after she and Joel split up). Joel finds out about this, and in his depression, he decides to do the same thing (erase Clementine from his memory). During the process of Joel's memories of Clementine getting erased, he decides he doesn't want all of the memories to be erased of her, because he loves her so much. I know, it's confusing, and if you've never seen the movie, you won't understand anything I just typed. But... basically, Joel is walking around in his brain trying to escape the process that's erasing Clementine (he's asleep during this process and can't stop the process physically, so he has to do it mentally). Anyway... here's where my thoughts come in:
There's a part in the movie when Joel is trying to chase after Clementine in one of his memories of her. Because she's getting erased, he can't quite catch up to her. He parks his car on the corner of a block and runs toward Clementine, but the road he's running down ends up bringing him back to where he started. He doesn't go in a circle, he just runs a few yards down the street, and then he's back to where he started. He turns around and sees Clementine still walking down the street. He goes to run after her, but again he finds he's back to his car. He turns around again to see Clementine walking down the street... he can't get to her because he keeps going back to where he started. I don't think this needs much explanation, but I feel that's how God is. We can see Him, and when we start to chase after Him, we find we're back where we started... at least I do. There seems to be no success in any of the issues I face. I know that a way to measure spiritual growth is how we resist sin, but what happens when we don't do much resisting? Like, yeah, obviously the "major" issues are easy to resist, but these small battles that seem completely useless to fight are just constantly dancing around in my head. I try and do the best I can... or, I let Jesus do it (whatever that even means), and I find that I'm still thinking the same thoughts (no matter how much I submit my mind to Christ). I'm saying all of this, because nobody is talking about these things. We can read books that submit the answers to our problems in these nice packages, but those packages don't always work for everyone. If your life is completely easy to fix, then these packaged answers are for you, but something I've been realizing about myself is, what works for most people doesn't work for me... no exceptions. And, none of this psychological bullshit about "everyone thinking they're unique," because that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying, to the average Christian, it might be really easy to settle certain issues, but I'm not the average Christian, and I refuse to pretend that everything is under the blood of Jesus and going real smoothly, because it isn't. I keep running, but I find I'm back at the same place.
Secondly, sometimes in my futile attempts to get close to God, I feel like I'm going to completely crazy. Like, I get headaches and stress about certain issues, because they don't get resolved. I struggle with my identity because of Christ. I'm going through a teenage rebellion in my 20's because I never went through one when I was a teenager (I seemed to do it in my early teens, but not after 14). I'm not going through it because I think I need to, but because I'm questioning so much right now, and in my questioning, it's labeled as "rebelling." This doesn't mean I'm getting completely trashed and sleeping with all these people... it just means I'm rebelling against what I've been taught. I don't think there's a lot of harm in that, because God refuses to leave me alone. Here's where the second point comes in... sometimes I wish I could erase God. Not Him completely, but just certain things I think about Him. Because, let me be honest, a lot of the stuff I think about Him probably isn't true. Most of my thoughts of Him are Biblical, but a lot of them are completely shallow, empty thoughts that need to be erased. These few thoughts are the ones that are turning my stumbling blocks into mountains. No matter how much I get frustrated and want to escape Him, I'm reminded of an amazing lyric by Sufjan Stevens:
If you want, He will take you
If you run, He will chase you
Because He is the Lord
No matter how much I run or think or pray or give up... He will chase me, because I am His beloved and He is my father with everlasting arms.
Really... do missionaries think this way?