Saturday, June 07, 2008

• I Will Not Boast In Anything.

  Two and one-half months.
  
  After that, I will be on my 2192.1 mile journey across the span of this country. Me, my loaded-down '92 Honda Accord coupe, an iPod, and the long, winding road through eight states to Redding, California.
  
  It's just now starting to hit me- how far away that actually is. I mean, distance has never really been an issue for me before, pretty much everyone I know and care about has always been within a couple hours drive, at the very most. I've lived here in the same house and the same city for twenty years now.
  
  I can't tell if some part of me is anxious about this. It seems like I ought to be, like I am- but I'm not sure.
  
  This much I know- a great deal will be different out there than it is here, and a great deal will be the same. I will get to know myself a little more, I imagine, and get to know people differently than I am accustomed to here, where people know of my family or where some obscure friend connects us. How I live will change, likely acquire a good deal more structure and routine. But at the same time, the routine will be wholly mine to set. How things are done, when they are done, whether or not they are important to me- it will be different, no pressures beyond those that my housemates may impose, which I doubt will extend very far beyond "you use it, you wash it."
  
  But more than all of that, this upcoming season of life will be a very stretching one for me. It will stretch me in terms of responsibility. It will stretch me in terms of confidence in myself. It will stretch me in my character.
  
  And none of this is really even touching on the stretching that will come from BSSM. I cannot imagine all that will happen to me as a result of putting the next two years of my life into this, into seeking what God wants to do with me at Bethel and in Redding. Because it was a decision- as I was praying about attending the school, I felt really strongly like God was saying, "If you stay in Terre Haute, I'll be with you and bless you. If you go to Redding, I'll be with you and bless you."
  
  Part of me has felt, for a while now, that there is growing up I have to do that will be easier to do elsewhere. I know there are things I need to sort out, old things that I still hold onto and that still hold onto me, and the need to drop them becomes more pressing. These things- I learned to hold onto them and they found their hold on me here, where I am now. And it's hard to learn how to drop them when the lifestyle that created them or made way for them continues much as it has for the past twenty years.
  
  To give just one example, nearly everyone I know has known me since I was very young. When I'm around them, the constant urge is to feel like I'm still a kid and behave like it, complete with outlandishness and foolery that for the most part isn't that funny, but it's "Ethan." Or at least, it has been. And it's what he defaults to, because it's what people know him as, and he loves being known.
  
  But he's not who he used to be, and he's tired of doing most of that.
  
  I mean, I'm me so much more than I used to be. That is, it's far, far less of the nearly perpetual act that I used to propagate. And I know learning to be yourself is the pursuit of a lifetime. And that the closer I get to Jesus, the more I learn and like about myself, because His nature overcomes mine a little more every moment that I am present with Him.
  
  But there's more, and it's for me in this coming season.
  
  "So, you're leaving because you can't be you here?"
  
  No. I'm going to Redding because I am eager for what God is going to do in my life at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, and the things I am going to learn and gain from that place. It will be an experience and blessing on the rest of my life. That's why I'm going to Redding, that's why I'm leaving.
  
  It happens though, that the space it creates allows for the rest of that, too.
  
  But it's funny. God is bringing a lot to the surface, right now, just a couple months before I leave, concerning my relationships with my family and friends and the people I care about. Like He's making it perfectly clear, "You can't just leave things like this."
  
  In my head, I can see myself going away, getting all healed up, and coming back a new man who is everything I want to be.
  
  In my heart, I know that relationships are healed and made healthy as you walk through them, day after day, letting go of what is rotten and paving a foundation of understanding and unconditional acceptance, covered with a grace for one another that only comes from Jesus.
  
  I know that I am who I am becoming, one moment at a time. And I am grateful for that- that I am changing, that His grace continues to work in me when I, in my eyes, have made myself wretched. When I, in my thoughts, am cold and distant from Him.
  
  That He, in that moment, does not withdraw from me His grace, does not withhold His love in punishment, and does not cease the work upon my life, making me to look more like Him when it seems like I'm busy screwing all of it up.
  
  When I can't see past my filth and rags, He picks me up and says, "You look like me."
  
  The angels, they don't understand that.
  
  I don't understand that.
  
  When someone hurts me, I don't know how to not try and punish them by withholding my love. It's so instinctive, like if I don't withdraw my love right away, they're going to hurt me more and I can't survive that. I can't survive being vulnerable is the message that is carved into our DNA from childhood.
  
  If you're vulnerable, you're weak. If you're weak, you're gonna die.
  
  And that's true in this world. It's absolutely true.
  
  But our absolutes don't mean anything when Heaven's floor breaks and in our moment of greatest weakness, His strength is suddenly perfect. And I can be vulnerable, which in this existence really is weakness, but not be afraid of being crushed or overcome.
  
  Because my weakness is His strength.
  
  I don't understand that.
  
  Your humble servant,
  -Ethan
  
  
  
  how deep the Father's love for us
  how vast, beyond all measure
  that He should give His only Son
  to make a wretch His treasure
  
  why should I gain from His reward?
  I cannot give an answer
  but this I know with all my heart
  His wounds have paid my ransom
  
  
  

  Currently Reading Red Moon Rising: How 24-7 Prayer Is Awakening a Generation By Pete Greig, Dave Roberts see related

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