Ifs and buts...

(Scribbles in traffic while listening to more Tim Keller sermons...)

How would you finish this sentence:

God, I will obey if...

I never thought of myself as one of those "God indebtors", but I realized as I sat there in traffic for two hours that totally am.

God, I will refrain from casual sex/premarital sex if you promise me that there is an amazing husband somewhere in the world for me.

And while you're promising me that, do you mind maybe giving me a sign to tide me over for a while?

It's a results thing. If I go out and do things, I get instant results. They might not be good results, definitely aren't the best results, but they're predictable in that there will be results.

I could go out right now and find a guy to sleep with and let him flatter me as he believes he's doing all the work to seduce me, all while letting him believe that he's in control just so the flattery gets painted on a little thicker such that it might last longer... I'll get results. Without a doubt. I'll feel (temporarily) satisfied, (temporarily) confident and (temporarily) slightly more loved than I was before.

But by saying, "If I sleep with a guy to feel good now, while rejecting God's idea of sex, then I don't trust God and don't trust that His idea of sex is what's best for me," I'm essentially saying the same thing as, "God, I will refrain from casual sex/premarital sex if you promise me that there is an amazing husband somewhere in the world for me," except wording it like the former separates me from God and the latter tells it like it really is. What I mean is, in the first statement, while I do admit to a lack of trust in God, I don't admit what it would take for me to achieve it. And that's the real problem here.

It's one thing to acknowledge a shortcoming and it's another entirely to question the real motivation behind it.

I don't think there's a husband in the cards for me. At this point, I don't even see a relationship happening. But between growing up with sex being a nothing thing and it being all around me all the time and me swearing off relationships for the long term, the only thing left is casual sex. Flings. Abstinence is a four letter word. And it really is. I mean, I see God's point, but I also see where I am and my state of affairs is not good. I'm not the marrying type. Nor am I the abstaining type. I'm... the results type.

Matthew ch 7:
21 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"

Tim Keller says being a Christian involves a gradual and inevitable change. And as in the passage above, we can go around helping others with their gradual and inevitable change, helping them to grow towards Christ, helping them to understand God and understand what this Christian thing is all about, but at the end of the day, we're merely vessels for others' change if we don't see that change occurring in our own lives.

Is it? Is Christianity changing your life? Or are you the same person you were a month ago? Or five years ago?

My growth comes and goes. I grow constantly. I strive for it and try really hard never to stay stagnant. But my growth in faith particularly isn't constant. I suppose any growth is a battle, but my faith is more of a battle than most other bits of learning and growing I experience, probably partly because it's the newest and therefore, I'm not as accustomed to incorporating faith-growing into my every day life. But at the same time, whenever I read pastors' tweets about how people in the Bible belt forget Jesus entirely for weeks and months at a time, even if they do go to church every Sunday, and I know that Jesus is a part of my every day, but it's a lazier part. It's kind of a heart part. You know? Instead of putting in the hours of Bible study I used to when I first started, along with hours and hours of sermon listening, I'm more likely to just listen to sermons and work on them for a while. They're like therapy, only with God and with more important purposes. I suppose if you're in a state of coasting, then yeah, you have to dive further into the texts, probably to find more layers of meaning to elevate your spiritual senses, but I'm not coasting. I'm rebuilding. And while I should be working on my textbook Jesus a little more than I am, I find myself working on the grace part of Jesus and the prayer part and most of all, the guidance part. I'm working on my listening.

I think my entire life, I've been guided, either by the Holy Spirit I misunderstand (still) or by my gut, but either way, I never listened and I got myself into terrible situations where the casualty was always me. And so I'm learning to listen. But it's hard to listen for something when you don't know what it's supposed to sound like. And at the same time, with the pull of the familiar, the comfortable, the physical and the easy, it's hard to stick with the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable and the obscure.

Sex is easy. Abstinence is uncomfortable. And it's easy to say that through abstinence would come the most growth, but I don't think that's true either. For me, through suffering comes the most growth, and if I abuse sex, it's bound to create suffering. That's not to validate my actions or anything, but just to point out that it's a difficult situation and not only that, but if I haven't figured it out yet and I mess up, I'm still growing. Growth is inevitable for me. I just have to make sure it's in the right direction in the end. Or, really, I have to make sure that I pray that God makes sure my growth is in the right direction in the end. I have to make sure to pray for God to know me. I think that'd be the worst thing- for me to be face to face with Jesus and Him tell me, "I never knew you." It's like I'd rather be judged and go to hell but have a little Jesus in my heart to get me through it than for me to get up there and be told I don't know Him at all. You know?

So I'm working on listening. And hopefully, out of that listening will come the trust with no strings attached. But I'm skeptical- just about the husband thing. I think that's my downfall, really. I just don't see how it'll work out for me, but that's the thing- I'm ok with not knowing how anything else in my life will work out, and I trust God for most of everything else (gotta leave room for future realizations), but for some reason, the husband thing is where I have a hard time letting go of the control.

I guess with healing, that might come. As the fear of ending up with another sociopath diminishes, maybe I won't feel such a strong pull to control that part of my path.

Maybe.