Kid A

A thought raised its hand in the back of my mind today. Why do so many things get to be okay? Boyfriends and girlfriends living with each other, people getting drunk, or worse, and totally screwing up their sense of reality every single weekend, slavery in our own country as well as buying the better part of everything we own from companies that enslave people so that we can pay a minimum price, people getting married without making a covenant with God... the list goes on, like an accountant punching numbers into a calculator all night with bloodshot eyes and tax sheets surrounding him. We have handed our world to The Enemy on a silver platter. It is so full of sin. I'm not setting myself apart from it. But why are all these things just normal? Why do we accept them if we know that they are wrong? Just a thought.

Lately I have been getting lazy with praying for others, and when I first realized this, I was upset with myself, but I believe that as of right now, 'remote prayer' isn't good enough for me. I still encourage myself to do it as much as possible, but if someone is sick, really sick, like they are going to do, or if someone is having something terrible happen to them, or really for any reason that you pray for someone, I want to go to those people and pray for them, find them where they are and pray. Right now it's sort of like the difference between meeting a friend and talking to them in person and talking to them on facebook. I don't know why.

Also I slept for a full nine hours last night so my eyes are totally bloodshot right now and I feel like a video game nerd or something.

The Body

Excuse my absence from the blogging, my story has been fairly boring for the past while, at least, boring enough to not have much to write about. But I have been thinking deeply about the body of Christ -- God's people -- and how I am connected to the body.

It's been a long time since I have been 'plugged in' to a church, but I was thinking about this today, and realized that I never actually was plugged in. Not the way I should have been. I hadn't even begun a real relationship with God when my family and I went to church. I attended various vineyards throughout my life. I visited with my friends, learned about some stories in the bible and forgot it later that day, and I may have even had a chance to help some homeless people for a couple of hours one Sunday... foiled. (Dad, I hope you know what I am talking about and are laughing right now).

So where am I at now? I love God, and am closer with Him now than ever before, and I listen for his voice, and try to learn about him and his nature every single day. Which is great. It's the best. But what about other people? I know that others care about me, however, why is it that I reach out so far to my peers and usually get little or nothing in return? What quality do I lack that makes me unwanted? Or maybe I'm not unwanted? If so, then why do I have to try so hard with people?

Of course, going back to church is the light bulb answer to my problems, but what I am hung up on is that people are the church. It's the people in the church that are the church, not the church establishment. Relying on weekly meetings, like sunday morning service and youth group, for a community of friends, really bothers me. We should spend time with God and have a strong relationship with him, but what about all the people around us? We should not put up these church walls and channel all of our social energy and attention to the people of this box.

My most important question here, the burning question, is how does Nate Fifield live in a community of friends that reach back to him? God must have put me in this place for a reason, and I suspect He is the only one who can answer me. Maybe I'm very, very lost, maybe I'm being a stubborn mule, or maybe I'm not listening hard enough for God's voice, but what I do know for sure, is that things are not right. And the truth is that they haven't been for a long time, and I want to figure it out.