and we grow weary.
Life was never designed like that.
To really live - and yes, it only happens when we first stop this ingrained habit of self-actualisation (remember the sinner's prayer which is really a prayer of relinquishment?) - we catch a glimpse of that..and O! the peace, the joy and newness..and then, sameness creeps back in.
It isn't that we are in the wrong church crowd. It isn't that our Bible knowledge is too weak. It isn't that others are making it way too difficult for us to love them. [though all this is true of course]
It is that we have lapsed -
back to trusting ourselves to live our lives well, right, good, pure
and it just cannot be done.
Faith, hope and love - are gifts.
We receive them as we slow ourselves enough to.
I think this is what I will say to my neighbour, who is not a Christ follower, but otherwise many ways like me (we like a lot of the same stuff, rant about the system...haha):
we struggle alike in many things: marriage, children, meaning..but there is just this one difference between us. At a time in my life, I met Jesus and he is in my life now. Indeed He is my life now. i am still discovering what that means..but i have seen now that because he is the foundation, the steady, my struggles give rise to
faith - i believe they are purposeful and useful, even though painful
hope - i have seen things change, get better, been startled even!
love - i keep being loved to love better...
All gifts and Jesus opened the way, qualified me to get them.
And all these are invitations for me to live totally different:
as a recipient and not as a rebel or engineer or critic
as rested not wrestling, weary, wounded (and licking my wounds and comparing them with others')
as resurrected not dying, dead or deadened.
