Making Good Choices

I don’t write anymore. These words exasperatedly came out of my mouth yesterday. I’m a professional writing major who doesn’t write – ironic. Of course I am writing a lot, but it’s all technical and professional and words from my head instead of genuine and informal and words from my heart. I love studying professional writing, but when I don’t have time to write for fun I feel like a musician at an engineering convention or a business man in a hippie town – in other words, out of place.

Repetitive, mundane lives are one of my greatest pet peeves and I’ve found myself living one. It’s caused me to forget my song and lose track of my dance steps. However, when I get off my groove or forget who I am it’s because I’m the one who has taken a step backwards. I stop giving thanks for His gifts. I stop acknowledging His hand in my everyday life. And then it just cycles further downward from there. 

Satan actually does wait like a prowling lion ready to devour and he won’t stop short of absolute destruction. Destruction of my relationships, of my passions, of who I am. He uses something as simple as routine to drive wedges in my life.

So I’ve found myself at yet another low point. Months of mundane and grey skies, wordless days and bland thoughts. And I take responsibility for it. I’m the one who stopped singing. I’m the one who got bored and gave up on counting gifts and daily discipline for His glory.

Actually, we’ve had some beautiful spring weather lately that has tried to breathe air back into my deflated lungs, and I’ve refused it. I’ve chosen to close my eyes to the shorts and t-shift temperatures, and focus instead on the negative.

We live in a very broken world and I’m reminded of it more each day. We live in an exile of sorts, like the Israelites in their 400 years of silence, waiting for God to come back and defeat evil. God has made it very clear how we should live and how we should wait. So I return to the basics: be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. I’ve been pursing these three commands for six years and I still forget how to do it.

If we expect to really live a full life pleasing to Him, we must put the shallow carbs back on the shelf and dig into the wholesome protein foods instead. We have to give our bodies and our minds what we are really craving, instead of short-term, temporary fixes.

Yesterday I started to sing again, started to count gifts again: the creamy green of an avocado, the sweetness of a mango, making granola from scratch, almond milk, simple workouts, dancing, Rwanda, friendships. And today I went back to a church that I had visited last semester and it felt right. It felt like how church is supposed to feel: reverent and genuine. And the words are flowing; I’m writing again.

I went to a coffee shop this afternoon with wifi worse than any café in Rwanda (that’s saying something) so I laughed and left and went to a used book store instead, because I’m choosing to look for ways to break up my mundane.

I crave more and I know that there is more in store. If we choose God in our low times, greatness is bound to happen. His mercies are new every morning, even when the skies are grey and the fog is thick. One day He will return and rescue us from our exile. Even if there are more dark days ahead, there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel if we choose Jesus.