It strikes me as incredibly funny how easy it was for me to hit a button and just disconnect myself from the internet. Just one simple blinking button on the left side of my keyboard, and suddenly my path to the internet super highway is blocked. What’s kept me from doing it is mental. All mental.
This is the first time in a long time where I have intentionally done this. For all of my inability to keep up with even those I hold most dear online, I find it incredibly easy to lurk, watch what they’re doing on their profiles on myspace or facebook. I can, and often have, spent hours upon hours deciphering how often they update their information, what pictures they’ve uploaded, what they’ve written to their blogs. I never talk to them. I just read, and pretend like the time is well-spent.
Of course the time isn’t time well spent. It’s wasted time. I could have been praying. I could have made a phone call in all that time. I could have written an email, or a letter. I could have been writing stories, sending out queries, doing research for a story… something. Anything other than frying my brain out filling it with gossip and other useless information.
But I do it because I think I need to fill my head with something. I have this problem with restlessness. I don’t know how to be completely still. While I may not look like it, my mind is always racing at a million miles a second, and before you’ve been able to utter your thoughts on what I just said, I am already on to another topic and have no idea what you’re talking about anymore.
And why do I think I need to fill my head with something? To drown everything going through my head out. It’s exhausting to have so much on my mind in such a small amount of time, and I don’t know how to share. I wonder sometimes if I am physically capable of sharing, because I never felt like I had someone to pour my thoughts out to when I was a kid. Grade school was awful, but even when I got home, I was never really allowed to talk about it. Get a thicker skin, Catherine. Don’t be so sensitive. I didn’t even have a journal because I was afraid I would be told no – that my parents didn’t have the money to get that. So I locked it all inside, all those thoughts, bouncing off of one side of my skull and against the other. That’s what I’m used to doing. That’s easy. It’s safe. It’s also why I feel like it’s necessary to block things out.
I’ve been incredibly convicted lately about that, though. Lately, I’ve been feeling convicted of a lot of things. On Tuesday, it was running from God’s calling on my life. This morning, in Sunday School, it was about how bad I’ve gotten when it comes to tuning in to God’s voice (as in, I’m tuning in all the noises of this world a lot more than Him). Later this morning, during the sermon, it was about being afraid. And, rather than being still and listening, I’ve spent the afternoon and most of the evening surfing the net, making my own plans and thinking about what I want to do with this calling instead of what God wants me to do.
This call on my life – it’s missions. This not listening thing – what I’ve been ignoring is that I need to get ready, because the time for me to go is drawing near. And this fear – this fear isn’t of the actual going part. The knowledge that I would be going has been in my head for a long time. I’ve just been waiting for that voice, the one that says it’s time. The one that says to go, to fulfill the tasks that have been set before me. No, this fear isn’t of going. I know in my heart I’m supposed to leave. This is not permanent.
My fear is that I aminadequate too inadequate for God to use me – which is a lie. I’m not too inadequate. God’s in the business of turning what people think is the best way to do something upside down, and using the people least likely to accomplish to get there. He loves to make His glory most evident in the least worthy. The sick. The wounded. The broken. And I fall in there, somewhere in the middle of all of it because, in truth, I am inadequate. On my own, I can’t do much of anything. But God can take the mess that is me and turn it into something completely beautiful.
So I am going to be taking down the block to the net for just a few minutes – long enough to post this – and then I am disappearing again… to pray. To sit in stillness and wait and patiently turn the dial up and down the radio signals until I hear His voice, patiently sharing my next assignment with me. If you happen to come along and read this, feel free to take a few minutes and ask God to help me with the tuning. I’ll take all the help I can get.
This is the first time in a long time where I have intentionally done this. For all of my inability to keep up with even those I hold most dear online, I find it incredibly easy to lurk, watch what they’re doing on their profiles on myspace or facebook. I can, and often have, spent hours upon hours deciphering how often they update their information, what pictures they’ve uploaded, what they’ve written to their blogs. I never talk to them. I just read, and pretend like the time is well-spent.
Of course the time isn’t time well spent. It’s wasted time. I could have been praying. I could have made a phone call in all that time. I could have written an email, or a letter. I could have been writing stories, sending out queries, doing research for a story… something. Anything other than frying my brain out filling it with gossip and other useless information.
But I do it because I think I need to fill my head with something. I have this problem with restlessness. I don’t know how to be completely still. While I may not look like it, my mind is always racing at a million miles a second, and before you’ve been able to utter your thoughts on what I just said, I am already on to another topic and have no idea what you’re talking about anymore.
And why do I think I need to fill my head with something? To drown everything going through my head out. It’s exhausting to have so much on my mind in such a small amount of time, and I don’t know how to share. I wonder sometimes if I am physically capable of sharing, because I never felt like I had someone to pour my thoughts out to when I was a kid. Grade school was awful, but even when I got home, I was never really allowed to talk about it. Get a thicker skin, Catherine. Don’t be so sensitive. I didn’t even have a journal because I was afraid I would be told no – that my parents didn’t have the money to get that. So I locked it all inside, all those thoughts, bouncing off of one side of my skull and against the other. That’s what I’m used to doing. That’s easy. It’s safe. It’s also why I feel like it’s necessary to block things out.
I’ve been incredibly convicted lately about that, though. Lately, I’ve been feeling convicted of a lot of things. On Tuesday, it was running from God’s calling on my life. This morning, in Sunday School, it was about how bad I’ve gotten when it comes to tuning in to God’s voice (as in, I’m tuning in all the noises of this world a lot more than Him). Later this morning, during the sermon, it was about being afraid. And, rather than being still and listening, I’ve spent the afternoon and most of the evening surfing the net, making my own plans and thinking about what I want to do with this calling instead of what God wants me to do.
This call on my life – it’s missions. This not listening thing – what I’ve been ignoring is that I need to get ready, because the time for me to go is drawing near. And this fear – this fear isn’t of the actual going part. The knowledge that I would be going has been in my head for a long time. I’ve just been waiting for that voice, the one that says it’s time. The one that says to go, to fulfill the tasks that have been set before me. No, this fear isn’t of going. I know in my heart I’m supposed to leave. This is not permanent.
My fear is that I am
So I am going to be taking down the block to the net for just a few minutes – long enough to post this – and then I am disappearing again… to pray. To sit in stillness and wait and patiently turn the dial up and down the radio signals until I hear His voice, patiently sharing my next assignment with me. If you happen to come along and read this, feel free to take a few minutes and ask God to help me with the tuning. I’ll take all the help I can get.
Comments
Post a Comment