I was reading another's blog and it inspired me... is that how these things work?...
THE CITY. I've felt a calling to live in the city for quite a few years. Having a child did not change that. Until...
I forgot the key to our apartment and was heading back to the truck to wait for Rob to get home. I heard gunshots behind me. Let me tell you: the most hopeless feeling in the world is having your 2 month old tucked in your arms and hearing gunshots. What could i possibly do to protect him from a powerful gun? Bullets could even go through my body and get his. That was 3 years ago. (side note: it turned out to be firecrackers echoing, as i have now experienced REAL gunshots! Way more scary as you watch the car that had the shooter in it zoom away and get the license plate to turn them in!)
I was picking up Rob from work in Oakland, CA, downtown, busy, crazy. People everywhere; Filth everywhere; stench; drugs; pimps; no God right there where I was waiting. God needs to be there; I should have prayed for that. BUT... to live there? to expose MY 3 year old to that filth? it's just unclean. i don't think I'm better than anyone else who God might call to be there, or ask to stay. But my urge to live there right now, gone! Those are not the only reasons: One way streets! i get lost every time i go downtown. Cops everywhere (cranky cops piss me off!), people yelling at you to move your car, honking, go faster, don't hit the pedestrian that just ran out into the street without looking. traffic lights mean nothing. I CAN'T HANDLE THE CHAOS. (see picture above of Oakland, CA, areal shot.)
I've actually been fighting God on this one because I have wanted so badly to move to the city and the opportunity has been passing me by; not coming up for me and my family to do it. I do believe that God calls some people there and had thought HE was calling me, but my heart is drawn else where and I've been fighting HIM on this. (Shame on you, Beth.)
More on that calling later when I actually figure out what God is saying. I was thinking "why does God speak in code?" but then, maybe he doesn't. maybe we hear in code, tainted by the world and church opinion. That's why God left HIS HS (Holy Spirit) to interpret for us; not to interpret God for us, but to clear us of the world so we can hear God better; and to interpret to God what we actually mean by all those prayers. maybe...
i love what you had to say about God not speaking in code but really us who are listening in code. we seem to make everything more difficult for ourselves :o)
ReplyDeleteListening in code... if we remember to listen at all. I find it all too easy to get caught up in the daily rush, trying to get through it all without letting it get to me and completely forget to listen to that still, small voice. ...as if any of that other stuff were really important in the end.
ReplyDeleteNow that I posted about the blog, I can post about the picture and not seem lame or thoughtless...
ReplyDeleteYou can almost kinda see the building that I work in if you squint and look at it out of the corner of your eye like this....
In the middle on the right-hand side of the picture there is a bunch of tall buildings. I work in one of them.
Even cooler than that (Possible? Just barely.): The large straight lines on the left hand side that look like runways? Yeah, they're runways alright. That's the Oakland naval base (in Alameda, weird). Movie magic converted one of those runways into a freeway for what has to be one of the most intense chase scenes ever filmed: The freeway scene from The Matrix.
But it gets even better than that... Adam, Jamie and the rest of the Myth Busters crew crash and blow stuff up there on a regular basis.