A moment of vulnerability

I’m not very good at this. I can be truly vulnerable with my fiancée, and that’s about it. And even that’s only at my times of greatest brokenness.
This world we live in today– it does things to you. When given the opportunity to make yourself heard at any moment– and we have that ability now– you fall into the trap of molding your voice to an audience. It’s salesmanship, when you think about it.

We have enough salespeople.

While the blogs and the facebooks and the twitters and the whatevers can provide opportunities for good, I often fall into the trap, consciously or not, of using these to bolster my own self-image– to make myself seem cooler, more spiritual, more Christian, or more wise than the reality of my private moments and thoughts.

In those private thoughts, I am very simply a constantly confused young man hoping to stumble into some revelation of who I am and who God is and what this world is. But, I have to admit, I haven’t stumbled into anything like that yet.

So, in the interim, I made some very nice Taylor Cox costumes to wear everyday. Taylor Cox the designer. Taylor Cox the wannabe theologian. Taylor Cox the relaxed, break-up-tense-moments-with-humor guy. And I would wear these costumes confidently. But then I would go to bed, often afraid, lonely, and unsure of who I really was.

It’s a bit of a bleak picture, I know. And it wasn’t so dramatic or sad as it may sound. Just empty.

My Lenten promise to God was to proactively become the person God wanted me to be. I soon discovered that, in order for that long process to being, some breaking needed to happen. I needed to break some conventions, some assumptions, and some of my protective armor. I was afraid that, underneath, I would be less than I wanted to be; or, above, that God wouldn’t be who I wanted God to be.

During this release, I realized that I had almost completely lost touch with the spiritual world. I only saw God in the physical and ideological– the charity of people, or the power of truth and goodness. I sought these out and thought, “these are godly things,” and that was the extent of my spirituality or connectedness to God.

I was keeping God at a safe distance.

I don’t always know what to think about the Holy Spirit or Heaven or the presence of a spiritual realm beyond what my logic-obsessed eyes can see. But I’ve recently been reminded that I most closely identify with God as Creator. And here’s the thing about creators: they don’t stop. They can’t stop.
It’s a nice-sounding truth that I talked about in papers and Bible studies. But I wasn’t seeking that reality in my own life and the world around me. Yet I truly believe that God is constantly creating, and beyond that, that Creation itself is entirely intertwined with God. I’m scared of the imperfections and the mysteries and the questions. There are some things that I just can’t reconcile with right now, and I may not be able to for a very long time. But it’s there, even when I ignore it.

And yet, these heady questions of spirituality and theology weren’t my real problem.

I forgot that God loved me.

I felt like God didn’t accept my questions and wandering. I felt like God must have been frustrated with my lack of progress and faith. God’s love rarely entered my mind. And that’s the most surefire way to feel alone, to feel disconnected from God. Again– God at a safe distance.

The love of God– it sounds so simple, so childish. We get in trouble when we wire ourselves to only accept the complicated, intelligent-sounding answers. And don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of complicated issues out there.

But without love, it’s all empty.

I just wanted to share that with all of you today.