I don't know much about me these days. I'm hopelessly addicted to escape. I like to ride my bike and jump it, buy bike stuff and dream of biking adventures. Often I just wish I could bike all the time.
But then there's another part of me. A place of shame. A sadness I feel at all the trades I make. Trading time as a father for biking. Trading time with my spouse for biking. Trading energy and joy for biking. I'm finding that I'm getting a raw deal in my trades.
I think we all do this. We sacrifice, in a sense, the good things in life for the not-so-good. We sacrifice our real spouses for imaginary spouses, we sacrifice real parenting for imaginary parenting, we sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice.
God says he doesn't want these. He's tired of them and so am I. What he desires is a contrite heart. Something like that.
He wants me to enjoy this whole comprehensive human flourishing thing. Sure he wants me to mourn my broken desire to hold on to stuff, but he also wants me to lighten up, or rather let him lighten me up.
Satisfaction is too heavy a burden for me to carry. I just can't attain it for more than a moment or a day. And if I do find it, especially if it's in the wrong place, I feel less me, less real.
I feel like I become a ghost of who I am when I pursue life in the wrong place. Hell, I feel like I'm less me all the time.
One day I will be me. I will have union with the one who loves me so much and I love so little. That will be a good day.
But for now I press on, trying not to give up hope, and embracing this God of a million-and-one chances. He's not trying to get me to figure out this whole life thing, he's just asking me to come to him with my hunger, pain and restlessness.
