What Matters

Sometimes God likes to hit you with everything at once. 

I wrote this blog post about three days ago, before I had internet with which to post it: 

I don’t know quite what I was expecting when I packed my bags (tightly) into my little red car and started on my way down to Richmond, Virginia.

But it wasn’t this. 

I’m living in a friend’s house near Cary Street for the summer while he is in graduate school in New Mexico. I adore the house. It’s in a cute neighborhood with lots of old skinny front then back for days types of houses. It’s old. It has character. 

Unfortunately, one of those characters is a toilet that doesn’t work. Another one of those characters was a shower head that didn’t work. Yet another was a shower that has no hot water, a tub that won’t drain, a padlock with no key to be found, a really creepy basement area, dogs that poop in the yard that isn’t theirs, overgrown bushes, halfway done renovations, and no curtains on the bedroom windows. 

Oh, and my allergies are making me look like I’m addicted to drugs. 

Also, I lost my credit card. 

I don’t know what I was expecting when I came to Virginia, but when things really started to get frustrating, I did what any twenty-one year old chick would do- I texted my girlfriend and requested some sparkling wine and good company. 

Although that helped a lot, I was still conflicted with a feeling of loss. Something was missing. I was bored. Or incomplete. 

Then I realized that I hadn’t prayed all day. It’s amazing how we can forget what is most important in our lives when the less important things start to take priority. 

Sorry, God, I didn’t mean to neglect you. Thank you for being here for me even when I turn my back on you.

And then I read it again today. 

Today, after I have been blessed too mightily with a full scholarship to seminary. 

Today, after I was able to run over four miles on my healthy legs. 

Today, when I was able to feed myself healthy food (and a lot of it if I wanted).

Today, when I am lying here in bed watching Netflix on my laptop. 

And I feel sick to my stomach. I can't believe I tried to take "trials" like dogs pooping in my yard and turn that into some sort of sermon. Yeah, okay, people deal with that stuff. And it sucks. But people also deal with things you wouldn't consider sarcastically to be "first world problems."

Famine. Poverty. Sexual abuse. Slavery. Abandonment. 

People being thoughtlessly slaughtered in Boston. A war in Israel. Soldiers dying around the world. 

Those things matter. It makes me sick to think I could look at my own life and want pity. 

I do this more times a day than I would like to admit. I commented to my dad tonight about how I wish I had enough money to go to all the swanky restaurants in my new town. While men and women around the world are saying, "I wish I had enough money to feed my children."

I'm not saying every person around me is like this. I try not to generalize humanity. And I'm also not trying to guilt you into a mission trip to Africa. All I'm saying, is how many times have you looked at the 'E' on your dashboard and thought, "damn I hate buying gas," instead of, "thank you God, for providing me with a car to take me to work and back?" Perspective is everything. We, society, (okay, I'm generalizing...) worry way too much about the little things and way too little about the big things.  I'm not any different. I'm probably worse than most people reading this. But it doesn't mean we can't change.

I wish I was satisfied by thanking God for His amazing blessings on my life and the lives of my friends. I wish I could go to bed in my (not air conditioned, but very comfortable) house every night without the hurt and anger and sadness I feel for the world. Some nights I can. Some nights I don't think twice.

But tonight I won't. I cannot continue to be satisfied with being comfortable. 

I don't want to be comfortable anymore. I want to be courageous for God in ways that I haven't even thought of yet. Because God has not only blessed me with health, money, and a strong faith, but He has blessed me with the ability and the opportunity to do something with the gifts that He has so graciously given me. 

And I want that something to be good. I want it to be worth dying for.