Life Without Mother

Passivity.

This is something the Lord has revealed in my life. It results in giving in to sin, a lack of honesty, fear of the future, and ultimately tears down any passion I have to pursue the Lord. Does it mean that I don’t love my Lord and Savior? No. What it does mean is that I have continued trying to resuscitate the dead corpse that Jesus says is no longer who I am.

I’ve had enough with death! No longer will it rule my life! No longer will I make mistakes simply because I was too afraid of sinking in the waves. I will hop out of this boat built from my head knowledge of what I can do through Christ and leap overboard through my heart knowledge that Jesus is calling me out onto the waves.
I’ve got to make a move.

Passivity has told me that finding quick fixes to fulfill my desire for intimacy was less risky than finding full satisfaction of that desire in Christ. But how could I believe that lie that slavery was better than freedom? The truth is that no one in this world — whether  family, friends, or even my future husband — can ever love me fully and perfectly like Jesus does. And neither will I ever love anyone like Christ loves them. Why? Because He created us and we are imperfected sinners. We messed up the beauty He made us to be, but when He sees us dressed in white as we can be only through the redemption of His blood, He sees us as that beautiful perfection He originally created.

Passivity has told me that simply not holding a grudge will bandage up a stab in the back, even though I left the knife in the gash where it could only twist ever deeper into my heart. Rather than this gruesome image of patched up broken relationships, I could have allowed the Holy Spirit to speak confrontation through me and removed the knife — no matter how painful that may be — and truly heal my relationships with family and friends. The truth here is that fixing what is broken often requires more pain as the blade that pierced the heart must be tugged across the same tender flesh it tore to begin with. But the result is a wound that may heal and scar and become even stronger than before.

Passivity told me that holding loosely the dreams and passions that the Lord has given me, allowing them to dangle from my fingertips, is the same as keeping an open hand underneath them, firm in order to support what He has instilled in my heart but willing should the dreams and passions become something even grander than what I may imagine. The truth is that God has given me a love for words and outsiders and the stories that come through both. The truth is that He will use this in me wherever He places me. For now, that is here at Louisiana Tech University in the English department, at Temple Baptist Church, and in Sigma Phi Lambda. This summer, it will be Chicago. After college, I don’t know. Yet. As of right now, I’d love to live in New York City — where there are plenty of people who need to hear the Good News! — but in two years, God may direct me toward a different place. Regardless of wherever I believe He is directing me, the truth is that I must press on faithfully and passionately until He may say, “no” by slamming a door in my face. (The past couple of weeks has shown me that He is fully capable of doing this, so I will continue to trust that He will guide me where He desires I go — which is where I desire to go!)

The scary thing is that passivity is so easy. So easy to go through the motions, constantly growing in head knowledge, but neglecting to exercise this knowledge. Case in point: I know how to be more physically fit and I am capable of doing so. I also have expressed to plenty of people that I need to do so merely because my body is a temple unto the Lord, and if I cannot act in this simple discipline of taking care of the physical, how can I discipline the spiritual? But have I actually done anything about this conviction? The only running I do is running late and my diet as of late seems to be one of Chick-fil-a and Frosted Animal Crackers. (Thank you, finals week. Well, and passivity.)

This short post is evidence of the heart knowledge that God has given me (much through the blessed gift of a friend who is willing to be used by God to speak even the more painful truths into my life). And a call for accountability. If anything, accountability for myself. The Lord has spoken. I have listened and now have written. And finally, I am taking action. No more passivity!

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  ~ Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV [italics added]