talk to Jah

People often blog about religious things, I do too. I'm often wondering how they really feel. Some blogs I've read have been lots of Bible verses, or lots of assured confidences with lots of words like: "blessed", "church", "Bible study", 'worship" - which are all great words, but I'd also like to read words like "not sure", "struggle", "why", "how", "help". . Jah. . i like that word. . its Rasta/Reggae for "Great One". . . they're probably NOT talking about Wayne Gretzky!!! LOL!!! I talk out loud to God sometimes, other times I talk from inside myself, most of the time i write my thoughts and prayers to Him. I try not to tell him what i think he wants to hear. . cuz he sees through that stuff. I try to be honest and lay it all out on the table, like this: Dear God: I appreciate you. I try to understand how much you give and have given, how much you have done for all of us. You made everything that is alive, living. You made the elements, the building blocks - the basic things that we don't seem to marvel at, but who of us could make these things? and who could live without them? When I was a kid i wondered about things like blades of grass, eyeballs, mother of pearl, clouds, orange peel, flowers' scent, fetuses in the womb, lava, water, what are they made of? wind and lightning, quaking of the earth. . have these things always been there, or was there a point when none of these things existed? The ancients seemed to have more capacity to appreciate creation. Sure they missed the boat when they didn't see you in it, but they had something we don't -- awe. I think we've lost it or misplaced it somewhere. I don't even think we know what it really is. Disaster seems to be the only thing that brings us that feeling of smallness and puts us in awe of great power. I want to feel awe without having to experience disaster.. . if that's possible? You know I haven't been staying close to you, like I need to be. I love you and I miss you when I wander off. I find it hard to live and not be influenced by this world, which seems hell bent on writing you out of your own script. Sometimes i think we're all like lemmings running off the cliff. Its so easy for me to only trust what my senses detect. I admit to you that sometimes I hear people voice their doubts or even their bold disbelief and it makes sense to me. I get why they would doubt that there is a God. I'm not exactly sure how I came to be assured that you are real - I don't think there was a single moment when I had a zap or a pow that took me from skeptic to believer. I did better when i was a kid - i didn't doubt, i just flung myself at you when i heard the message of how much you loved me. But I grew up and grew out of that fickle love of mine and I strayed far. Thank you for taking me back, I didn't deserve it, but still you did. I don't want to spend time with you just to hedge my bets, like you're some cosmically eternal insurance policy or a 'golden ticket' to endless favour and ease. You know that I don't always stay close. . i get busy with trivial pursuits. I'm often side tracked, preoccupied and distracted. I feel my humanity pulling me away from you - its hard to resist that force. I'm sorry. I'm glad that you are all the things I'm not. . . faithful, loyal, generous, compassionate, strong. How do i know this about you? I guess you told me. I wouldn't know that on my own, until i'd run out of options and ideas and i started reading yours. You have great ideas, I don't understand them all. You have this counterclockwise way that draws me to you, yet also maddens me , though without you i become unbound and collapsed upon myself so I have to approach you to bind myself to you and here is my freedom? binding freedom? You seem backwards to everyone else I know. You tell me to love those who hate, pray for those who persecute, take your yoke on my shoulders to find my release, have faith in what i can't see in order to correct my vision and die to myself to become alive in you?!! You want me to live this way? Its bizarre, almost ridiculous to ask this of me if it wasn't for your powerful ability to make it all possible and I do believe that you have that ability, i have to receive it or else I have no chance. Its not easy to submit to you, but times when i have, i've felt different, lifted up, lighter. I love you because you give chance after chance and you don't run out of mercy. I respect you. There's this feeling I get when I talk to you, like a feeling of being 'okay' like things are right, even if they're not -- its not easy to explain, but you know what I mean. I know that we can be honest with each other, but i don't seem to hold up my end of it, cuz i keep getting tripped up on the same issues, like a baby who's learning to walk and keeps falling down. Even though we've been through so much you'd think i'd know that you're there. . . but sometimes you still seem invisible to me and i forget you and turn to the people I can see and touch. I want to see you. I want to look beyond Bible verses taken as 1-a-day vitamins, swallowed without thinking. I want more than that. I want us to have a continuous dialogue, communication. I don't want you to remain in verses on a page, i don't want to think of you stuck in some building or limited to rituals or rules that flatten you or make you seem boring or make being with you like some duty or chore, some weekly traditionalistic fix. I want anything but that. I want the real, undiluted you. I can't get behind anything else. Help me live. We both know how much i owe you but i forget how large my debt load is. I love that you don't throw that in my face, but you speak to my spirit and i feel it there and my mind tells me that i can't repay you, but you tell me that I don't need to - its been taken care of. Isn't that what everyone's looking for? I want to depend on you, i don't want independence from you, i want to be totally dependent on your grace. Help me, its so against my nature.