Wander

A huge part of my return to faith has been dwelling on the conditions of it. Sort of a "where I am, where I've been, and where I'm going" type of analysis. I think things like that are important because we kind of need to take a step back and examine the big picture and all the principles therein. That, and as anyone who's spent time with me knows, I tend to over-analyze things by nature. Well, among the things that I've thought to death on this subject is what it was that caused me to fall away from my faith in the first place.

I've come up with a variety of possible reasons for this. Things like bad experiences with the church, or maybe exclusion from a clique or the "in-crowd" of a youth group, or even mild persecution from the world. But the truth of the matter is, while these things have definitely occurred to an extent (I never did fit in that well anyway), they're hardly prevalent enough to deter me from an environment and lifestyle that I truly want and believe in. Realizing this, I also had to reach the terms that my "reasons" weren't actually reasons at all, so much as arbitrary excuses based on conjecture, which acted as placeholders while I figured out where the problems really were. Because of that, I was never completely comfortable with my rationale. I would just subconsciously use it and put it out of my mind so that I could focus on other things.

It wasn't until recently that the pieces started to fall into place and finally make some degree of sense. The realization came from a combination of a couple of factors. One was reading through Crazy Love, specifically a large section about actually loving God. The other was an accumulation of observations I've made about my peers and role models in my Christian faith, specifically regarding their behaviors and mannerisms resulting from their apparent joy and peace, which are the fruits of their deep relationships with God. So what, then, is the ultimate reason that I fell away? What was it that I always lacked?

Passion.

I didn't have a passion for Christ. I didn't love God. I wasn't interested in the things that He honors. All my focus was (and in some sense, still has been) based around selfish, worldly motives. The frustrating part about all that? I didn't even know. I wasn't aware of what I needed and lacked. My deceptions were rooted so deep that I had myself thoroughly convinced that my heart was in the right place, when it wasn't. As a result, it's no wonder my faith, religion, and relationship with God were unfulfilling.

Again, this is something that is not entirely surprising. In fact, it stands to reason perfectly. I just never fully connected the dots. Now that a picture is beginning to form, I'm left reflecting on a more definite question: how do I change that?

Somewhere in the passages of Crazy Love, Francis Chan acknowledged this condition, and he advised prayer for a change in it. So here is my prayer, put simply: that I deepen my love for God and my passion for the things that He loves. This is one thing for which I can honestly and unreservedly say that I am desperate. If you're reading this, please pray this for me, as well.