My Prayer.

From April:

Be still. Be quiet. Be present. Just be.

A lesson I’ve learned over and over, but can’t seem to hold onto. A mind that races and rushes, that hypothesizes and synthesizes even before sufficient information is provided. A mind that turns things over and over, analyzing them to death, then becoming paralyzed by the analysis, is stuck in the rut of limbo.

What does it mean to be still? To know that you are God? To find strength in quietness and trust? Especially in a world where rest is a foreign concept to us. The fine line between rest and sloth, the way we at times “rest” as a way to justify throwing all responsibilities off. It’s a command, not a suggestion. In the Old Testament you repeatedly tell your people to rest. You will fight for them. You will carry them. You will lead them. They need only be still. They need only to trust but they just can’t seem to do it. Their mistaken mindset that they must have a visible king to rule over them, that they must find fulfillment in another god, that their loyalty is with the gods of other nations- it’s those mindsets that lead them over and over again to a place of darkness, want, and desperation. Then from the pit they call out to you, you’re angry, and your wrath is just, but you instead reach down and lift them up. You offer them another chance to know you and trust. You offer them a redemption they don’t deserve, not only lift them out from darkness, but lift up their heads as well. Yet the cycle continues as they prosper, and promptly forget your goodness, even with all of the memorials and reminders you’ve commanded them to set up so that they may remember.

And now, trying to figure out my next steps, my mind is a tangled ball of yarn that even I can’t find the end to. It’s not something I’m proud of, but something I need to own up to: I’m running ahead, unable to read the road signs I encounter, and my direction is absent and I’m a mess of stress trying to decipher what he will reveal in due time.

I’m on the far side of the cross-cultural transition from the field of Beijing with meaningful work, good friends, and total independence to jobless, lacking a support system (and data to connect with one), carless, living with my parents, and quite dependent on others. The money is flowing out with all of the expenses that come with transitions and living in America yet none is coming in.  I even share a room with the cat, who apparently has more sway than I do in how the room is run. I have just a few months. Then I’m back on the run to Beijing again, but for only two months and in an entirely different capacity. New residence, new job (that would be that of study), new friends, new requirements. Figuring out how to get to Chicago to apply for the visa and making the money to pay for it. Wanting to visit friends who have moved on and are in much different stages of life than I, yet having no means of transportation to go say Hi. With the prospects of going to an IVY league and figuring all of that out, the financials that go into it and how to straighten all of that out. Trying to find jobs, make money, grow spiritually, invest in family and keep my sanity. I can only imagine the neurons in my brain bouncing around like pinballs but with the exhaustion of a man running an iron man. I’m not sure how much longer they can keep up the pace I’m requiring of them to run this unending race. I forget what it’s like to have a mind at rest.  A mind that can shut off. Like a guy. Who has an empty compartment they can set apart for zoning out. I wonder if I would find respite there, in shutting off my mind.

I’m all about being still, yet it’s been so long since I’ve done it.  It seems I always have to come crashing down for me to realize my need for it.

I love Bethany’s song To Those Who Wait, yet I race ahead instead, trying to figure it all out, taking the burden on myself, my back straining from the weight of my incessantly racing mind. I desire to surrender all of these things. All of these aspects, these trails my mind is blazing. It’s not up to me to know everything. If I did there would be no need to learn, to experience, to trust in something greater.

There are so many things I think I would enjoy, and second guesses are always knocking at my door to introduce themselves and create hesitation. A hesitation that prevents me from doing anything.

I don’t want to try and blaze my own trail. I can’t handle the stress of dressing myself everyday for creating my own success in a place with only self-reliance and the tangled mess of my efforts.

I want the faith to surrender. The trust to let go. The hope that you are good and you provide, as you have done and keep doing, even though I’m so quick to forget and neglect that part of my mind that reminds me of your faithfulness.

So before I go on, before I try to figure out all my relationships, financials, career stuff, before I try to make things happen educationally, I want to surrender my hopes and dreams. For in reality, I’m not even sure I can define what those are. And that’s part of my stress. If I had a clear target or dream I’d go right for it. I know how to work hard to achieve. And deep down I fear that I would race forward forgetting your faithfulness. You’ve brought me this far, and I don’t want to go further if you’re not there. For where you are, I want to be, just as you’ve said where I am you also are.

Search me and know me, O God, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Dig down and expose my motives, purify my plans, and replace independence with trust in you. For there I find strength.

So my conversations with Columbia Teacher’s College. You’ve continually provided financially, so I pray you’ll provide this time. I pray for scholarships, but if it’s loans, show me that it’s your gift. I pray for favor with them and wisdom in my conversation with them. Work in them and work in me now. In your name, I pray for favor. I pray you provide again financially. And if I’m running in the wrong direction, reorient me. Undeniably.

I pray for favor in searching for jobs. Provide, as you have done. Jehovah Jireh. You are a god who provides, so please, provide financially. I will work. You know that. Provide the jobs, the opportunity.

Jesus, I also want to serve, to love others, to offer myself in some way or another. You are good and I trust you will provide those opportunities as well.

In all of this, give me trust in you. I ask confidently, yet I confess the part of me that doesn’t know if that’s how I should pray. I fully believe you can do it. I fully believe you are able. So I ask as your child. Your sinful, forgetful, thirsty child. Your forgiven, justified, glorified, powerful child in Jesus. And I walk forward in that power. I lean into you with all that I am. For apart from you I can do nothing. I know TC is a dark place. I know the challenge there and the light you could make me. If this is from you, make it happen. Favor and wisdom with these people.

And with that, give me the grace to surrender.