Notes from the Wayside: Introspection: Through My Glasses, Darkly (2016)

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Through My Glasses, Darkly (2016)

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NRSV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He shall direct your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

You call me out upon the waters

The great unknown where feet may fail

And there I find You in the mystery

In oceans deep my faith will stand

From "Oceans" by Hillsong United

In September of 2010, I went with some of my friends from the Wesley Fellowship on a little excursion to Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. One thing that draws visitors to this site is a small waterfall called Sliding Rock. The waterfall's gentle slope and the pool at the bottom make Sliding Rock a naturally-occurring water slide. At first, I was not planning to join my friends in sliding down this rock, but, at the last minute, I changed my mind. As it is often said, "You only live once."

As I stood in line for my turn to slide down the waterfall, I did not realize that I was forgetting something important. To be honest, I was a bit distracted at the moment. I had recently lost a lot of weight, so I was a little excited to be shirtless and not self-conscious. I even made it a point to flex for a girl I liked at the time - not that I actually had anything to flex. When my turn came, I sat down, gave myself a little push, and began speeding down the rock. When I was about halfway down, I realized that I was still wearing my glasses. When I hit the pool at the bottom, they were gone.

I did not even attempt to search for my glasses. I seriously doubted I could find them, and I didn't want to be the jerk who held up the line because he failed to secure all loose objects. Besides, I tend to wear the same pair of glasses for a really long time, so I wasn't too worried about losing them. I had already been wearing my current pair for over six years, and they needed to be replaced anyway. The lenses were chipped; the frame was bent; they set crookedly on my face; and sometimes they fell off my face when I looked down. I had been planning to buy new glasses for nearly a year, but indecisiveness in selecting a frame had caused me to put it off. Losing my glasses would force me to finally do what I had been needing to do anyway.

I shrugged off my loss as a minor setback. I would simply wear an old pair of glasses until I could get a copy of my prescription and buy a new pair. The problem with my plan was that I'm nearsighted and depend on my glasses to see clearly. The only old glasses available were a pair I wore back in high school, and my eyes had changed so much that, when I wore them, things still appeared fuzzy at a short distance. It was difficult to read from a distance, so I still needed to squint. Straining my eyes gave me headaches, and the blurry vision made me feel as though I was constantly in a haze. Perhaps the worst part of the experience was not being able to see people's faces from a distance. My blurry vision put me in a bad mood.

Five days later, I finally bought some new glasses at the mall, and they made a world of difference for me. I was able to see so much better than I had all week that it was almost overwhelming. Everything I saw seemed so clear and beautiful. I didn't realize how much I had taken my vision for granted.

It has been nearly six years since I bought those glasses, and I'm still wearing them as I write. As I noted earlier, I tend to wear the same pair of glasses for a very long time. Considering their current condition, I'm starting to think that I might need a new pair.

I originally shared this story less than one week after it happened. It was a story I really wanted to share, and I felt that there was a spiritual lesson to be learned from it. To me, the haziness of my vision that week symbolized the haziness of the path ahead of me in life at the time. The excursion to Sliding Rock with the Wesley Fellowship would become a bittersweet memory for me. I think that, even then, I knew deep down that my time with the group would soon be coming to an end. I knew that I had outgrown the group of collegians that had been my community of faith for the last five years and that I needed to find a new community.

I must confess that the reflection I originally wrote about my experience was a bit forced. In my eagerness to share that story, I did not sit with it long enough to glean the spiritual lesson I actually needed at that time. Back then, I hastily came to the conclusion that the path ahead of me was hazy because I was not turning my whole life over to God. Not long before that time, God had delivered me from a bad job situation and led me to something better. At that time, the idea that God actually had a plan for my life sounded attractive and made a lot of sense.

In the years that followed, I painfully learned the hard lesson that there are people out there, some of whom are pastors, who will pass off their own agendas as God's will. Having let myself be drawn into a bad situation and having fought my way out of it, I am no longer a huge fan of messages about giving God control or surrendering one's expectations. I tend become rather suspicious of pastors who encourage their congregations to do such things, wondering if they will presume to communicate "God's will" for them.

Six years ago, I argued that we need at least three things to turn our lives over to God: the humility to admit we need help to find our way, an openhandedness with our desires and expectations, and the patience to wait for God to act. I don't think I was wrong back then, but, looking back, I realize that I missed something even more important than the other three - trust. An old hymn tells us that "there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey."¹ As I see it, we need trust in God in order to freely obey God.

I think that, if I had spent more time reflecting on that story in the context of my life back then, I would not have said that the road ahead of me was hazy because I wasn't trusting my life to God. Instead, I probably would have said that the hazy road ahead of me was a reason I needed to trust in God at that time. I think that maybe that was the message I really wanted to share back then. I say this now, having journeyed through the fog and having entered into the fog once again in the past year.

My journey back into the haze began almost one year ago with a sense of restlessness and a request to my friends for prayer: I knew that something in my life needed to change.

At that time, I became the de facto leader of my Bible study group - which became my community after I left the Wesley Fellowship - when a number of core people left. When I realized that the future of this group was uncertain, I feared that I would soon be further isolated from my peers. I made the decision to finally leave my home church due to the loneliness, futility, and pressure that comes with being the youngest member of a small, aging congregation, and I started attending a church with more people my age. A couple of months later, due to waning attendance and enthusiasm, I had to disband the Bible study group. Over the next few months, I came to the realization that, despite the wonderful new friends I had made, the church I had been attending was not a good fit for me, and I changed churches once again.

To summarize, I asked my friends to pray for me because I felt my life needed to change, and I ended up losing a number of things that were important to me and familiar to me. Needless to say, I have been enveloped in fog. Despite the fog, I do not despair. I keep moving forward, trying different paths, trusting that my story is actually going somewhere.

One of my spiritual gifts is teaching, but I haven't had very many opportunities to teach since I left my home church. This year, wondering if I might have a future teaching at a higher level than Sunday school, I volunteered to teach a class on Wesleyan heritage and doctrine for Lay Servant Ministries.² I especially wanted to teach this class because I had been feeling that many of my fellow Methodists have forgotten or abandoned their roots. Unfortunately, the class was cancelled because the required number of students did not register. Still, I am not giving up: I fully intend to teach this class someday.

A few months ago, when I came to the realization that the church I was attending was not a good fit for me, I found a church that seems to be moving in the same direction I've been moving. It is not quite as large as the church I had been attending, but it has been experiencing a lot of growth lately, and I think it is a place where I can experience growth personally. I'm also hoping that, as I get to know the congregation, I will rediscover the sense of community I've lost.

Probably one of the most surprising parts of my journey lately was the weekend I spent in jail. I have a couple of friends who are adept at getting me into trouble in all the best ways. What I mean to say is that a couple of friends of mine invited me to help out with the new Epiphany Ministry in my city, a ministry for incarcerated teenagers.³

We all go through times in our lives when the road ahead of us is hazy. Such experiences are not necessarily a result of a lack of trust in God, for life has a way of becoming hazy all in its own, despite our best efforts. Such experiences are, instead, invitations to trust in God to lead us to where we need to go. During such foggy times in our lives, all we can do is to keep moving, open to God's guidance, trusting that the path ahead of us actually leads somewhere.

Notes: