A Fighting Chance

I always loved underdog stories. Tales where the lift;e guy wins. Those stories where there are terrible and near impossible odds to overcome, and somehow, they little guy comes through.

I'm starting to realize that this is how I see my life lately. I have had kind of a martyr view of my life, and seeing it as as series of dragons put in my path that I have no hope in slaying. All sorts of things. Work. School. Evangelism. The distance with Sara. Literally everything.

And it's kind of interesting; putting your life in to that kind of perspective. Things feel so impossible. You feel so small. I think this is an amazing thing. Too often it's easy to get full of yourself, and not really think about the fact that you are a very tiny speck. Eternal perspective is lost. The current event becomes bigger news than the main headline.

See, I realize that when I do this, it's easier to remember God's presence. I can see that my struggles are absolutely massive, and cannot in any way be swept under the rug. I have no choice but to turn to God, because without him, I'd be totally destroyed.

I love feeling like I can't do something. I love being told that I can't. It is better motivation for me than anything else in the world. A good friend once told me that I would never be a great musician. I may never be famous, but I proved him way wrong. Not being egotistical, but I'm not half bad at music. It's all because he said 'Bet you can't'. But too often I start to lean on my own understanding, and not of Christ's.

For example: I'm currently writing my second CD. The first one, while not the best quality, was pretty good, because I prayed over the lyrics, and tried to make something that was God breathed through me. The second one, lyrically, I was basing on my own emotion, my own wants, and not really giving God a seat in the creative planning. Since I have, I've been amazed. I feel like his words are taking to my songs.

I feel like, when given challenges, it's so easy to try and take them on our own. But next time, play the underdog. Put yourself in those shoes. It may surprise you what you find. 

It isn't love

I did not realize how much this would suck.

I have been sitting in the same chair for 5 hours. I've been surfing Facebook, pinterest, 9gag, and watching stupid TV. And the only thing that I can think about is how much I miss her.

And it's kind of ridiculous. It's been less than a week. But I have all summer to sit and think about missing summer. It kind of gives you cabin fever. She's living her dream, and I'm so happy for her. But I really want to be with her.

There is a lyric that I always think I understand, and then I rediscover it.

'If it doesn't break your heart, it isn't love.'

Well, for the first time ever, I understand that from the perspective of someone in love. Deeply, madly, in love.

This is a crazy, short little post. But I had to say something about it. 

Solitude

One of the most powerful things in this world is thought. It is as wonderful as it is dangerous, and it has changed the world time and time again.

I find that I like to avoid thought altogether. The less I think, the less trouble that I seem to get myself into. I focus on working, getting through the day, and finding my bed in the late hours of night to do the process all over again.

It's incredible how isolated time forces you to think.

I'm in an apartment on my own. I have roommates, but I really don't care to get to know them. My friends are away. My family is far away. Sara is gone to Disney.

I am all on my own, for really the first time.

I'm not alone, because God stands beside me. It's the difference between loneliness and solitude. I'm simply isolated from the world. With lots of time to think.

This gives me the ability, and better put, the opportunity to better myself over the next two months. That's all that I have been able to think about as of late. How who I am fall so short of who I can be. I can be great if I put my mind to it. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

I'm taking this summer and becoming the person who I know that I can be. When you close your eyes, and you see yourself as you always wished you would be; yeah, that's who I plan on being. No more being subpar. I can't do it. I'm focusing a lot on my music and my health this summer. I'm making my music so much better than it has ever been. And I'm getting really damn in shape.

I feel like, while the solitude is exceptionally painful, it is an opportunity that God has given to me. He knows my heart. He knows who I can be. I am here to serve him, and that is exactly what I plan on doing. I'm going to start stripping away the parts of me that I feel hold me back, like slothfulness and inactivity. I can't halfway do things anymore.

So, quite simply, I won't. 

Opening Doors

I know that no on one on earth knows their future. But even in all of my wildest imaginations, I could never, not in a million years, predicted my life as it is now.

Nine months. I put down this blog almost nine months ago. I was looking for something, and feeling restless, and I decided to start looking for whatever it was that I was looking for.

I still haven't found it. Not in the sense I was expecting.

I've learned so much about the person that I am, and the person I thought I was, and the person I want to be. I see things a bit clearer, albeit my life is far more convoluted than it was. As I have been kicking around the idea of picking this up again, I decided to read up on some of my old posts. I honestly don't think I was as lost as I thought I was, I think that I just didn't know what it was that I was looking for. It's like I was a caged bird, who had a really big, transparent cage. I knew, subconsciously, that I was trapped, but I didn't know how, or what was confining me, or why.

I had a few blog posts along the way that said I was tired of the mundane. That I was looking for something more. The last post put it as a 'lather, rinse, repeat' process. I think that this is how I was confined, and while I had two really seemingly obvious puzzle pieces, I never quite put them together. I didn't see that it was this process that was keeping me trapped. This is why I felt restless. I wanted freedom from it.

In the nine month hiatus, I really changed the song I was singing. God made so much clear to me, in such a simple way. God put things so simply to me, in the way that He is good at. He gave me this mentality that my life is so much more than myself. Seems simple enough. But It's a deeper thought than the simple idea of this. Take Ruth in the bible. Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz. All three of them had every reason to live for themselves, and to live the life that any sensible human would. But they put themselves aside, and paved the way for the coming of Christ, without ever knowing what they were doing. They were honoring God by completely humbling themselves to God and the world, and greatness happened from it.

I've always been one to try and help others, but I never really stopped to look at my motive. And I'm not saying that my motive has been bad, but it hasn't always been good either. But the more I think about it, I am wanting my motives to reflect the 'in the world, not of it' that I know I need to be living. I have really been coming to grips that my life is so much bigger than myself.

Someone I respect very much put it like this:

"Ryan, you are a great person. But your life is so fleeting. So you really have two options. You can live your life knowing that you are a great person, and trying to show and prove to the world that you are a great person, doing everything that you do for selfish reasons, or you could humble yourself and serve the world. No greed, or selfishness, or anything like that. So ask yourself: what are you living for? Yourself? Because that will only do you good while you are alive, and you could die tomorrow."

And I have taken this to heart very much. I know that I am here to serve. I am second. And I love that I am second. But there is a difference between fully serving and being a doormat. And I've done the doormat thing as well.

So it breaks down like this: I'm not living for myself, but I'm not forgetting myself either. I'm serving Christ. I'm serving the world. But I'm not forgetting that I'm in that picture as well. I'm second, but still here.

One way that this is reflecting, is by spending next semester in Disney. I'd say that this is quite a break from the mundane. I'm going down to be with my love, Sara. I'm not going to sugarcoat my Disney trip and say that there were many reasons that made me decide to go. I wanted to be with Sara. That's why I'm going. That being said, I'm not abandoning who I am and what my purpose is in the process. I'm going down for her, but I will be used by God, for sure. I'm going down with the mindset of a missionary. I will be in a place with people from all over the world. I'm sure that many of them don't know the love of Christ, or even what his sacrifice truly stands for. So I'm making it my personal mission to be a living example of who Christ is.

I hear a lot that I'm different. Most people just mean that I'm weird. But a lot of people see joy in me that takes them off guard. They don't know why I'm different, they just do. All of those differences, ALL of that joy comes only from Christ. That is His love in me. And I won't stop being different until everyone knows.

So all this talk, and it's still not clear. What did I learn in nine months? God has one crazy adventure on lined up on my horizon. And He will use me for something far greater than I can fathom.