A Hard Now

The “now” of my life overwhelms me most days. It overwhelms me with confusion and questions, feelings of depression and inadequacy. Where am I going in this life? Why can’t I make solid decisions? Why is my faith so small? How can the Devil so easily win? And most of all, why do I still at like a child at age 24? The regression from independent and intentional living in Europe to being fed every meal by my mom in my childhood home is truly the most depressing of it all. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. Everything seems to be going wrong.

And for awhile, I tried to plow through this on my own, finding small upturns when the heartthrob of accounting walks by or when I have a day off to relax. Sometimes even, I find a good verse to assuage some of the worry and confusion. But every time, he walks away, I have to go back to work, and then I forget the verse. Where am I now? I am worse off and usually more down than before. Why isn’t this life working?

Last night, I began reading Amos. I think I was feeling guilty about never reading the prophets. While I didn’t come to it like a kid in a candy store, I was determined to read slowly and understand as much as I could. Most of it was judgment on the people of God because of their disobedience… losing land, families and ground against evil. The command goes out thrice in chapter 5, seek God and live [v5,6,14]. It pierces me, I have not sought, therefore I do not live. I have kept part or most of my life in my own control. And it’s not working for me. I contemplate a life spent seeking God and I focus first, and almost solely, on the difficult parts – the fighting for my heart, the sacrifice of comfortable things at times, the struggle to be holy. And then the end of Amos comes… and there is hope. Hope in Messiah, hope in Christ. I let Jesus take these fears and confusion. I commit my heart to fighting for truth. I am not wishy-washy anymore.

Keep praying for me. Danke.