The simplicity of faith.

I've been doing some thinking about my past (again). I look back to my past and I notice something--I didn't want to change at all. I insisted that my ideas about being a wolf were entirely true, that I needed to make it happen, and that it would be stupid and hopeless for me to simply accept myself as a human being.

I rejected the idea that I truly needed Jesus in my life, because to me, if I truly gave my life over to God, I would have to change... and by no means was I ready to.

That's the excuse, isn't it? The thing we always say when it comes to a relationship with God--"I'm not ready to give up my ways."

The beautiful thing I also see, and that many Christians see... is that God didn't wait on me. God didn't wait for me to be willing to change before showing his love to me.

As I got older, I chose to accept that God really did love me (around age 15 or so). I started to pay more attention in Church and get involved in youth group discussions. The mystery of God slowly became clearer to me, and it became progressively more visible in spite of the life I was living, and in spite of the fact that I still didn't want to change. I would simply pray every other night that if there was something wrong with the things I was doing, that God would show me. I didn't think about it critically, I didn't read the Bible outside of Church to discover that, because I put such deep stock in the identity I'd created for myself that I was afraid to let it go.

But God never let up. I experienced him more and more, even as my choices worsened... until I was brought to the point where I understood the love of God enough that letting go of the life I lived was not only okay, but desirable.

I didn't logic through it, I didn't dissect my behaviors, I simply was shown that God had better, and that my choices were cutting me off from him... and I didn't want that anymore. I wanted a real relationship with God, and not because I decided to get religious, but because God revealed his love to me within the simple acceptance that he loved me, and that deep down I wanted to know his will, despite how contrary my life was to that.

I make my present problems so lofty and confusing, making it my job to fix myself... but in my past, not only did I not make "fixing myself" a job, I didn't even truly believe there was anything wrong most of the time.

It was all God... and it needs to be all God again.