Friday, January 23, 2015

Security or Adventure?

         For my graduation last May, one of my best friends from my senior year bought me a journal with questions to inspire writing every day. Writing every day was one of my goals last year, so the journal is now a part of my daily routine.
            The question for a few days ago asked; are you searching for security, or are you up for adventure?
            I had to pause and think about that question (which is always a good thing to do before writing anything) because I’m huge on security, planning, routine, and safety. The structure and rules were things that I appreciated about college life; I attended a Christian college with more rules and regulations than most universities.
I met God at college, and He took over my life, which was an experience similar to a cross between being abducted by aliens and finding out I was a princess unawares. The people I encountered at college fell into one of the two camps: those who were at various growth stages within their royal roles while seeking to expand their knowledge of our King, and those who desperately whispered escape plans from our alien abductors while refreshing their knowledge of what the “normal” world was like. I could relate to both groups. Some experiences and information were completely alien to me, grating against everything I’d ever known. Some experiences and information made me feel so special and so blessed royal. However, I didn't completely identify with either group. I came to the warped conclusions that it was because I was such a late addition to the “society”.
I liked the clear-cut, black-and-white, no-way-out format of the college because I didn't have the anxiety of wondering what I should do, what I should wear, and how I should respond to things. I always felt very safe. All I really had to worry about was schoolwork and running.  
            Before college, I lived in an environment with fewer rules and regulations, more freedom, more responsibility, more decisions, and a hectic work and school schedule which I had to make myself. In college, a lot of the decisions were already made for me – what I could wear, where I could go at what time, which classes I needed to take in order to graduate, which hours I could work on campus, even what I could eat based on what was in the cafeteria that day – and I appreciated the new-found safety which I enjoyed as one piece of a 50+ year old, well-oiled system. I loved the singular focus of homework and cross country. College snatched quite a bit of the burden of the rest of the responsibilities off my shoulders.
            Then, I graduated early, wishing that I could spend another year in college, and yet thrilled to be done.
Life became instant confusion. Maybe it sounds stupid, but I wrestled with issues as little as whether or not I should go back to wearing blue jeans (because we weren't allowed to wear blue jeans at college) and whether or not it was okay to miss a Sunday service because of work (this was highly discouraged at college). Also, I struggled with bigger issues, such as whether or not I should be okay with a stranger spending the night on my couch (not even a feasible situation in a women’s Christian college dorm), what church I should even attend (there had been a list of approved churches at college), if I should still love gory action movies, and how I should respond when there didn't seem to be a correct answer to a question. 
My job posed even more ethically complicated situations, which I had before faced and accepted as a non-Christian in the job world. Now I struggled because I had a new conscious and the Holy Spirit, both of which I often didn't know how to handle. What were the college rules that I was unconsciously connecting to my relationship with God, and what was the Holy Spirit, and what was the old me?
Christians seem to somehow think that meeting God makes things less complicated. On a big picture level, I found that truth to be beautiful; nothing in the world makes any sense without God. On a day-to-day basis, I found that thought to be a horrible lie.
Imagine having a unexpected collision, landing in the hospital with all these problems caused by the collision, being told that you actually have a bunch of other problems revealed by X-rays and tests, finding out you aren't who you thought who you were, nothing in life means what you thought it did, your purpose is completely different than what you thought it was, you need a heart transplant and a brain transplant (if that’s even possible) and a blood infusion, and the person who is going to do those procedures and give you those things is now hugging you and shaking your hand, and he’s a stranger to you, even though he’s known you for forever. You’re meeting him for the first time, freaking out because he'll now be part of your life forever. Regular surgeries will be required throughout your entire life, some more painful and hard than others, and your life will never go back to “normal” (whatever normal was in the first place).
That’s what meeting God did to me.  
The rest of last year, I felt dangerously insecure. I felt like I was either being reckless or being a kill-joy. I felt like I was being labeled simultaneously as a conservative Pharisee or an irresponsible liberal by different people. I tried to make my own list of morals and answers to my FAQs. The organization didn't help; no matter what situation appeared, I always lost. Without fail, I lost. Sometimes the decisions I made seemed okay, then crumbled. Sometimes someone told me a decision I felt was wrong was actually right, or a decision that I thought was right was actually wrong. I thought I’d been welcomed into a society of doppelgangers, and I was in grave danger of becoming one as well.
The security or adventure question was another one of those questions that I would lose, no matter what I answered.
Spontaneity is nice to a degree, but I prefer security, always knowing what is coming next, having clear boundaries, correct answers.
Complaining to God, I cried;
“I don’t feel secure.”
What don’t you feel secure in?
“Everything.”
How much do you need to know to be secure?
I blanched, realizing my problem. “Everything.”
My prerequisite for security was omniscience. My definition of security was never feeling uncertain in anything, not even in what time I got up in the morning, and especially not in when I would have the money to pay my bills or if I would be hurt by a certain person.
I wanted God to be like college: a list of then/if equations, fail-proofs to various scenarios, something like a step-by-step to life, or a Life for Dummies book, and He just … wasn't. I wanted Him to be simple to understand, when He is a complex, round character (to put it in author's terms). 
The answer to the security or adventure question has to be both options, I ended up recognizing eventually. Life with God is going to be a default adventure because I will never know everything, but I can be secure in the fact that He will always be in control of the adventure and always right by my side in the middle of it.
I’m just never content to have it be that way.




2 comments:

  1. Whoa...that was amazing. As a Christian who grew up that way, this is so interesting. Of course, I know what you mean. Once I finally decided to give God my life and cared about what He wanted, things did become more difficult. I guess I'm used to it now :)

    It's a long story, but in college once I got brainwashed for a short time into believing the evolution/athiest spiel. Suddenly my options were wide open; there was no angst in finding God's will...there was just profound deadness.

    I much prefer things adventurous.

    God bless you! :)

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    1. P.S. Here's a link to a blog post about when I was brainwashed and what I learned from it. Hope you enjoy it! http://morethantheancients.com/2016/01/31/what-i-learned-as-an-evolutionist/

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