Not up to the fight today

You can tell a lot about my mental, emotional and spiritual state these days by checking out what I’m playing on my ipod at work.

Jason Upton, Steve Bell, Kendall Payne, Jacob and Lily – most of these mean I’m in a space where I’m willing and waiting to meet with Jesus, to encounter him.

U2 on the other hand, I listen to when I’m angry, when I’m afraid, when I’m frustrated, when I’m feeling the need to fight through something.

I’m listening to U2 today.

It would be an overstatement to say that I woke up angry this morning… you need to get more than three or four hours of sleep for it to qualify as “waking up”. Tossing and turning and lying awake and frustrated through most of the night hours doesn’t qualify.

I’m feeling tired, angry, fearful, frustrated. I’ve been sick for nearly two straight weeks – first a stomach bug, and now a brutal head cold. And I’m feeling just a little bit guilty because today I just don’t want to engage with the things that usually lift my spirits. I’m feeling like indulging the fear and the anger, and feeling sorry for myself… I’m feeling like wallowing.

Jesus re-hijacked my life in mid-August. It’s been a wild up and down ride ever since. So good, but so exhausting.

I’ve gone to deeper places than I ever imagined possible with Him. Beautiful places.

And today, I’m terrified of those places, of that ongoing journey. For a long time I’ve been afraid to deeply engage with the Spirit of God. I’m afraid of what I’ll find in my own soul, I think. I’m scared of losing control. I’m scared (again) of being “weird”. I’m scared of what He might ask of me. I suspect following Jesus may ultimately cost me my life.

I carry generational fears, too. Fears that compel me into slightly OCD tendencies – a need to check the lock on the door carefully before I go to bed each night among other things. To some degree a fear of men – particularly within certain situations. Odd that my mother, who passed these along, has found such freedom from them, while I still struggle deeply.

I carry fears from a series of things that happened in my life when I was twelve – fear of betrayal by friends, fear of rejection. In fact, it was a friend asking me the question “What were you like when you were twelve?” that opened the doors to this recent plunge into deeper things of Jesus.

I’ve chosen to live openly – the things I put on this blog are the deep heart things, very few things don’t make it here, or are held secretly. There are things I treasure in my heart that will never be shared, but mostly, I live with defiance – a honesty that is designed to push past the secret-keeping, fear inducing past of my life. I will give a piece of my heart to many who ask or draw it from me, and I trust them with it, but in some, secret corner, I wait for that moment of rejection and betrayal.

I want to be clear that I know so many of the spaces I’m occupying today are lies. That I know that fear is not from Christ, that He wants to combat lies. I just don’t know if I feel up to fighting that battle today. It seems easier to play dead.

So I’m sitting here, sipping tea, and listening to U2, and feeling angry, and exhausted by the battle, feeling frustrated, and unable (unwilling?) to fight.