Who am I?

Do you ever have a thousand things running through your mind at a time? I'm sure that everyone does. What I wonder is, does everyone else's thoughts all circle around things that they wish they were good at or better at? Is this a problem that only I have? Pretty much every night (and day too) I am stirred by thoughts of all the things that I wish I could do or do better.
I've discovered that these thoughts occur every other night and every day. I attribute this to the fact that after you couldn't sleep one night for thinking about everything, then continue to think about it all the next day, your body shuts itself down to save itself. You are forced into a deep sleep every other night to shut down and recharge...like a cell phone or a computer. God is so clever in that fact. He saves us from ourselves all the time.

Take this week as an example. Monday night as I was trying to sleep I was stirred by all the thoughts of things that I wished I could do. I lay around for hours not sleeping thinking about all the artistic things that I wished I could do. I wish that I could write stories, poems, poetry, song lyrics, anything deep and philosophical that touched people. I wish that I were an artist...that I could paint or draw beautiful things or take amazing photographs that showed a deeper meaning of something or the human race. I wish that I could compose music. I wish that I could write songs that showed the world who God is, who I am, who we, as humans, are on a deep level. The type of songs that everyone hears and each person has a different feeling or meaning from it, but they are equally valid and true. I wish that I were artistic so I could touch people on that deep level that talking to them never touches. I suppose that I wished all artistic things that night because I am a music major and I really am not good at much else. I say music major rather than musician because I don't write any music or lyrics myself. It makes me feel so lowly and selfish to only be good at feeling music. When I play I only have the thought of what the music means to me. It's not deep, it doesn't change people's lives, it doesn't make people see the face of God or relate to him, it doesn't give meaning to anyone or anything except myself. I stayed awake that night until about 3, laying in bed longing for a deeper, more artistic existence, then God shut me down and I slept until about 6 the next morning.

On Tuesday I picked right up where I left off and was haunted by my selfish existence all day. After about 22 hours of these thoughts with only a 3 hour reprieve, I slept soundly all night.

When Wednesday came, I only did one single thing all day. I read this amazing book called Blue Like Jazz. I think that everyone should read it. It's written by a Christian who, like me, has had doubts in his life. A man who gets the image of God wrong again and again but keeps trying. Mostly it's about loving people and how he has problems with institutions in general (including organized Christianity) because people get lost in the mix. I agree with him. We get so wrapped up in changing people to believe what we want them to that we lose sight of what's really important...loving them. We hold our values so strongly that they become like government...like a system of checks and balances (he says that in the book). This of course leads to trying to stay in check all the time and thinking that a life like this is what Jesus intended. A life of doing everything correctly and making sure everyone follows the laws and does everything right....a world where it becomes "us" (who try to follow the laws) and "them" (who are living contrary to our laws...think people in other religions, people who don't believe in God, doubters, homosexuals, etc, etc.). Instead we should love everyone no matter what they do...after all it is the ultimate commandment. He speaks of how he tried different spiritualities and religions, how he went to a Unitarian church, how he feared that he became "trendy, modern Christian." He talked about how he loved the fact that many places (like the Unitarian church, or some of the other religions, or a college campus where people scoffed at believing in God, or even a commune of hippies) had the thing that so many churches and institutions were missing. They loved everyone the same no matter what...everyone was considered equally human. He of course found the flaws in those religions to be the simple fact that some of these places condoned sins of false Gods, homosexuality, believing in no God, etc. He just believed that rather than trying to show them their faults or changing them, it was our job to just show them love. Hopefully, eventually those people would ask or realize why you were so loving to them and then you could share your faith.

I began to think that day. To think that so many times we get caught up in the idea that ministering to people is the same as preaching to them, regurgitating the Bible to them, shoving God and religion in their face. We think of "minister" as the person on the pulpit every weekend, as a noun rather than a verb. The first definition of the verb "minister" is: "to give help to somebody in need". That's what we are supposed to do. Jesus always, always met the people's needs before he preached to them. He fed them or he healed them FIRST. He made them comfortable and safe, got their trust, got their belief that he loved them, before he ever preached to them. How do we miss that mark so often as Christians?

The book also taked about how so often we talk about how important it is to feed the hungry and help the poor, yet we do nothing about it. We might give some money to our church or a foundation but we don't physically do anything about it. The bible also shows how when people believed in something, they physically did something about it. If I truly believe that I should feed the hungry and help the poor, then why am I not acting on it? I talk about how poverty stricken places are here and in other countries and how I believe that we as more fortunate Americans should help them. But here I am, a very, very fortunate American, sitting at home in my overly comfortable house with my abundance of food, clothing, etc. I am sitting on my butt on my couch watching TV instead of being out there helping people. This thought alone kept me up all night. If I believe in so many things then why am I not active? Why do I not share my faith when the subject comes up, why do I not use my good health to get out and minister to people less fortunate, why do I live in this gluttonous way when it is sinful and others are starving for food, shelter, and clothing? This is something I wish that I were better at. All night and all yesterday I thought about this. Then last night (Thursday) I was asleep by 10:30.

This brings me to today where I already have thoughts in my mind buzzing and racing around like insects around a light. I am thinking about my physical self. Why I don't do a much better job with that? My body is God's temple. I am supposed to use it to share his message with people...to do his work. I am so far out of shape that it is at least a year out of reach for me to get into the shape I should be in. Why have I let myself go? Why the excess weight, the weak muscles, the unhealthy body in general? So today I begin a journey to a better me...a me that finds an outlet to bring deeper meaning to people's lives, a me that does something about what I believe and loves people first and foremost, and a me who gets in the shape for my body to be able to do whatever God needs it to. A better me...can I do it?