late night musings

February 4, 2011
I met up with a friend today for lunch. It's been awhile since I enjoyed a good conversation with substance and so I thought I'd blog about some tidbits from our conversation that have continued to stick with me throughout the remainder of the day-

-technology, the internet, cellphones, etc. has made us people who cannot deal with silence and solitude. This is a sad fact that is becoming more and more prevalent in our generation. People just won't and can't sit in silence or solitude with no one and nothing but themselves. Silence and solitude is key to our meditations and waiting upon God and without silence and solitude, our spiritual growth has subsequently weakened because we are so distracted from being where we should love to dwell: in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. I do believe that with all these distractions around us, the devil has succeeded in making us shallow people absorbed with the meaningless and temporary, while the eternal in our lives withers away slowly without us ever noticing. People rarely sit to just think about where they are, who they are, where they're going, and what exactly it is that they're doing with this gift of life they've been given. And so we see a generation of young adults/youth who have absolutely no idea of where they want to go and who frankly, don't seem to care much. (A new word has been invented to describe this phenomenon: adultescence. Look it up.) Compare the lives of those Biblical heroes or even those great preachers and writers of old (Charles Spurgeon, John Wesley, Augustine, etc.) to any of our lives today, and we should be saddened at the shallowness of our lives and the passivity in our approach to God. We may admire or want to be like those who had great faith, who were content with nothing less, and who reached a level of intimacy with God little known and experienced by the general public, but rarely do we set out with the determination and will to make it ours though it is attainable.

-another effect of having all this technology that makes it highly unlikely for us to ever be out of reach with anyone (texting, calling, IM, email, internet, etc) is that we have developed a sort of addiction and reliance on these things. I've blogged about this before. If one is unable to connect to the internet, I can almost guarantee frustration and anxiety will ensue: "MY EMAIL?! MY HW?! MY FRIENDS?!" and then the inevitable boredom that follows. Imagine not having internet or a cellphone, and being by yourself in your apartment/house. I bet many's first thought would be "what would I do?" and then one would instantly call up a friend, and go to their place to hangout, do hw, etc. I've had this thought before as well. What could one do? The boredom may make us feel two things: 1. isolated and alone. lonely even. 2. frustration at our addiction being cut and tampered with. My friend posed an interesting fact to me. He said that so often when people cannot get to the internet, cannot reach someone, anyone, or cannot connect to the outside 'world', there is an intense level of frustration, anxiety, and worry. Now imagine having lost that 'connection' to God-cannot read the bible, pray, spend time with God, etc. and you get a much much milder reaction, if you get one at all. It's amazing how we can go weeks and months without touching our Bibles, with 5 minute prayers every other day, and be absolutely fine. And go 5 hours without the internet, and an entire day of no cellphone and we almost go insane. It is sad to see how little we really care for and need our connection with God, especially when we in the US are so blessed to be able to have so many bibles in our houses and the freedom to pray and commune with our God. I heard a story of how there was a Christian thrown into jail for his faith. He wanted his bible so badly that his wife devised a plan- she sent him food wrapped in the pages of the bible. The guards never noticed, and he, in his jail cell, was able to read over and over those precious ripped out pages of the bible. What a contrast! A sad sad contrast that should be driving us to our knees begging God to stir within us that fire again.

-As depressing as the above two paragraphs may be about our current condition, I believe that within all of us, we have a desire and a liking to solitude. It's just been crushed and hidden underneath all the distractions and the unrealistic fear placed upon us by society of being alone. We are scared to look like a loner, to feel like we have no friends, to be by ourselves. It's almost as if we were afraid of ourselves, afraid to just stop and think of who it is that we actually are and have become and are going to be. Instead, we'd rather throw ourselves into meaningless distractions, filling our minds with the useless and the trivial, so that we wouldn't have to face the emptiness that is inside and that we so often refuse to fill with the presence of God because we simply cannot be alone before Him. And this leads to my next point....

-So often God grabs our attention and forces us into silence and solitude by allowing troubles, trials, and hardships to befall us. Such great hardships that we really cannot do anything but sit in silence by ourselves, realizing that at the moment, nothing else can quite heal or quiet down our hearts as God can with His peace. And then we are faced with who we actually are and why it is that God has allowed such things to befall us. Circumstances don't make or break us, they reveal us. I want to remember this forever; my friend mentioned it to me as something that has always stuck with him from a pastor's sermon. This statement is so true. Circumstances don't make us tired, angry, frustrated, or mean people, it merely shows us to be tired, angry frustrated, or mean people, people with so many flaws that cannot be ignored when the right circumstances bring it out. And so God uses the hardships to reveal these things to us. My friend gave a nerdy but most excellent analogy of how this is. (If you're an engineer, statistician, or mathematician, you shall love this.) The circumstances are the inputs, we are the black box that is being researched and experimented on, the outputs (our reactions to the inputs) merely reveal what is in this black box. Our circumstances merely reveal us. I may tell myself that the circumstances are 'special', that if those circumstances weren't there, I'd be a completely fine and normal person. But that is a lie. 'Circumstances' are not an excuse for our behavior or reactions, they're really just an indicator of who we really are underneath the facade.

So, what I got out from these things? I use to take much time out to just pray and be by myself before God, dwelling and cherishing in His presence. In the busyness of school and adjusting to a new church, I've let that slide. I am determined to take out time again to be before my God, by myself, no distractions, and just reflect and meditate upon His goodness. I've also been learning much about who I really am. Circumstances really do reveal us. I'm not someone easily annoyed or angered. Ask any of my friends and my family members, and they will most likely vouch for me on that. But God has helped me to realize that under just the right circumstances, I am not as even tempered and in control of my emotions as I may want to believe myself to be. I'm learning to not let others take charge of my emotions and not to hold my treasures too tightly. I'm learning to talk myself through my emotions, instead of just acting on them or letting them consume my very being. I'm learning to step back and let God take over the situations that come up and confront myself when I know I am wrong. I guess the key in everything is this: I'm learning, growing, and reflecting. Thank God that He is still working in me and through me, and I am not a hopeless case.

Currently blasting:

Let hope rise
And darkness tremble
In Your holy light
That every eye will see
Jesus our God
Great and mighty to be praised