For when the air gets thick...

This is a post I've actually been pretty darn afraid to write up...to be honest it's something deeply personal and something that I struggle with at a level that goes straight down to the core of my being, but as it is, when inspiration strikes, I know it's time to blog. So here goes...

"I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down in to Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look...that is why it is so important that you know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances....nothing else matters. And now, daughter of Eve, farewell..."

Aslan gave this warning to Jill in The Silver Chair just before she embarked on a journey that would reshape her very being. It was part instructional and part warning and in essence, He was telling her that unless she stayed true to His path, she would falter and the "thicker air" of Narnia would confuse her mind and cause her to make bad decisions.

In my mind, there is nothing more appropriate and applicable to the Christian walk than this.

This rings so true in my life because I know what I'm supposed to do. I know the right thing to do and my "instructions" are clear: "love others...love them deeply and love them desperately, let them know that they matter. Stand for those who cannot stand for themselves and above all, be courageous in the power of the Holy Spirit." This, I firmly believe is one of the most important instructions God has given me.

However, so many times in my life, things just...get in the way...I begin to focus so much on other things going around in my life. It could be a new attachment for my AR-15, some new movie is out in theaters, or even just that I'm more tired than normal. But whatever the case is, this is something that distracts me from my Lord's calling and so the air thickens.

As the air thickens, suddenly my focus shifts. My mind suddenly wanders while I'm doing my devotions, my excitement is no longer on Christ but on things that don't matter. My spirit suddenly begins to have an all-too familiar fleshly nature take control...suddenly I start focusing on appearances and forget the signs.

As this takes over, my old sins come back. My old habits come back. My old self comes back. Mostly in the form of two things: Lust and insecurity.

I'll talk about the latter...because lust is pretty simple to be honest. It's bad. Don't do it.

But as for insecurity, it's something that has plagued me for almost my entire life. As you probably know from an earlier post, my childhood wasn't easy friend-wise. Not to over-dramatize it but basically I was bullied and excluded quite a bit. In fact, in middle school I had three friends who I considered to be my best friends. I would do anything for them, I spent my entire summers with them and I always felt like I could be myself around them. When everyone else mocked me for my ethnicity or social awkwardness, they didn't care, I felt safe around them.

But it wasn't to last.

Around 8th grade, for reasons unknown to me, they decided to move on. They stopped talking to me, they all began mocking me and calling me a freak as well...it tore me to pieces. But life went on and I luckily had some other friends that I knew who accepted me into their fold.

But there was another hitch...they were cool. And I was not.

These guys and girls who were to be my new circle of friends were smart, wealthy, athletic, and popular.

In their defense, they tried to accept me but they were in all honesty...normal.

They talked like normal kids, they acted normal, and they lived normal.

Never did they have an awkward moment where their voices cracked, never did they not know what to say in a large group of people, and they never said a random joke...everything was cool, collected, and well...normal. And so when a guy like me acted random or strange or awkward...they either geve me weird looks or refused to talk to me completely.

This taught me a very hard lesson: unless you act cool, no one will like you.

This taught me that affection, friendship and even romance was utterly conditional and there was no such thing as a lasting and real relationship. It was all about how you acted. If you acted good enough, you got accepted, but if you acted weird, then it was all over and you were back to being a freak.

This helped develop a paranoia deep within me that literally made me desperate to please my peers. I felt that as long as I was utterly cool and popular, then I was worth something, but if I wasn't the coolest, or the best, or the most spiritual, or the funniest then I was worth nothing.

So now that we're caught up, I hope you can understand how deep of a struggle this is for me to overcome. I desperately fight it every day but like I said...when the air thickens, my sins come back.

I stop looking at my life through God's eyes. I forget Galatians 2:20 when God reminds me that my old self; the insecure, angry, depressed, addictive, and selfish Jeremy has died and God has put in me a Jeremy that is secure in Christ, loving, joyful, self-controlled, and selfless.

I forget 1 John 3:1 when God calls me His son and how deeply intimate that title is.

And I forget God's challenge in Colossians 2:6-7 when Christ calls me to walk firmly confident in Him.

The air thickens. I forget. Insecurity strikes again.

As that happens, the old lies that haunted me for so long begin to whisper in my ears.

"You're a freak"

"No one really likes you...they hate having you around but they're kind enough to tolerate you."

"Unless you do the dance and act the act, no one can possibly like being around you."

"You are quite possibly worst Christian alive...you are the most messed up human on the planet."

And finally...

"You are alone." 

With these lies taunting me, suddenly I begin to over-analyze EVERYTHING. My "feelers" are always feeling around trying to get the "real meaning" of what people say. I refuse to trust that people actually enjoy my company...I refuse to trust that I'm likable.

Then it spirals even further downward where this paranoia forces me to try to "understand" what people "really" say and do.

I then try to "stay a step ahead of them" and anticipate when they will abandon me or hurt me because I so deeply don't want to be surprised again by another betrayal or exclusion.

Do you see why this is hard to write about? This is something that is so deeply personal, I almost don't even believe it myself when I see it in writing.

So if you've been around me lately, you've probably noticed a lot of this coming out...I don't know why and I'd like to tell all of you one thing: I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for not trusting you, I'm sorry for being paranoid about you. I'm sorry for the stress it's caused you.

Whoever is reading this...I hope at least one of you out there is struggling with the same thing I am because I want to tell you the thing that I always long to hear in times of insecurity and that my Father whispers in my ear every day:

"It's going to be okay...because you're pretty okay yourself. Not because of how you act, not because of how you look, and not because of how you dress, but because you are you. And you are pretty spectacular."

Do you hear that? YOU are spectacular. God thinks you're worth dying for, and I think you're worth fighting for.

If there's any point in this post, it's this: Don't let the air "thicken" around you. Pursue God headlong as fast and as fiercely as you can because fighting for that clear Narnian air is worth more than anything else on this planet. The clarity and peace that God gives us when we focus on Him and our identity in Him is beyond words.

So if you feel confused, and the signs are lost, and you may even end up in a giant castle about to be cooked into pies, remember that God is just waiting for you to clear out of that slump and run back to His adventure.

Instead of my usual farewell in which I say "watch some Victorious and sip some green tea" I would like for you to watch this video below and drink in the peace and clarity that Christ desperately longs to bring you.

Until inspiration strikes again,

-Jeremy