an old trap..

It is early Sunday morning, and I just got home from a weekend trip to Des Moines, Iowa and St. Louis, Missouri. I am sipping coffee on my deck, reading a book by Henri Nouwen called "The Return of the Prodigal Son", and certain parts are helping me to understand aspects of my own life more clearly. They are serving to shed even more light on the things that I have written myself, and, the next time someone asks me what "Sleeping In" is about, I might start with...

"Constantly falling back into an old trap, before I am even fully aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn't pay attention to me. Without realizing it, I find myself brooding about someone else's success, my own loneliness, and the way the world abuses me. Despite my conscious intentions, I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and very famous. All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my Father's home and choose to dwell in a 'distant country'".

The story of the prodigal son in the Bible is a story of unconditional love. It is a story of how a father loves his son no matter what he has done in his past. Although parts of the above excerpt may seem overdramatic at first glance, read it again carefully. Look at your own heart and examine the things that you really want. What drives you? What drives us all today? Is it affluence and popularity? Is it acceptance or respect? Are we waking up every morning just to prove to the world that we are someone? Or do we realize that we belong the God and that He loves us no matter what? He loved us when we were helpless babies with dirty diapers, and he loves us when we are helpless adults with failing mutual funds. It's Sunday today. Rest. Rest in the Father's arms.

- Joshua

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I just got home from church today and read that Blog.. and i got that 'woah this is me' when reading the quote.. "Constantly falling back into an old trap, before I am even fully aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn't pay attention to me. Without realizing it, I find myself brooding about someone else's success, my own loneliness, and the way the world abuses me." That is me.. I don't like to say it, but I know that it's true. "Despite my conscious intentions, I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and very famous." I think i'm getting past that, but there was a time when that was very true of me as well.

I don't know.. I thought that maybe that would just hit someone else as it did to me. (: