Man, I don't know about you dawg, but I am hellah tired right about now, and it's not just because it is currently exam time. This exhaustion has been slowly growing for many, many years.
I have always been aware of the need for change in myself, others, systems, and just the world in general. For much of my life I have tried to do my best to contribute to this change. I am going to school so that I can educate myself, learn to think critically so that I can minimize the amount of stupid things I do with devastating consequences, and so I can eventually get a job which I am passionate about and which will allow me to use my own personal skills to make the world a little better. I spend a lot of time volunteering or working with children in order to make a positive impact on future generations. I try to treat everyone I meet with as much respect as I can. I try to be positive, at least sometimes, in order to make others smile, and I try to figure out how to make my love for others most effective. I try to be at least somewhat mindful of my environmental footprint. I try to challenge my friends, peers, and family to analyze their thoughts and actions so that we can all do our best to make the world a better place. I try to sow peace and defuse conflict.
I am the first to admit all of my weaknesses. I am very emotional, so I can be extremely negative. I am a really doubting person and I struggle to trust which has affected my huge fear of homelessness which has really hurt my generosity. Basically, I can be a pretty greedy person. I am not nearly as environmentally conscious as I should be and although I enter every relationship with the best of intentions my fears and selfishness often causes me to hurt others rather than help them.
My own failures seem even worse when they are put together with the way things are right now on this here world: war, poverty, disease, death, anger, selfishness, bullying, power plays, an environmental crisis, an epidemic of apathy, etc. It just totally discourages me. I feel so hopeless sometimes.
The question becomes: how do we keep from giving up. Sometimes it seems like only big changes are worth anything, but I feel like slow incremental change is the only way things ever really get better, so we need to make sure we don't give up, we need to keep doing what we can to make this place a little better.
We need to keep fighting.
But what are we fighting?
I can tell you what I think we are fighting...us. I think we are fighting human nature, well - forgive me for getting into the faith I barely understand but...- I don't think we are fighting human nature the way God intended it be but the way we warped it with sin...I guess you could say we are fighting sin, or the devil, or well just that badness that so easily seeps into us and messes us up. I don't really understand it, I just know that it's not all good. There is bad and I think we need to fight it.
The only problem is the fight is too big and it is so darned easy to give up. Where can we get hope from? Where can we get energy from? How can we keep waking up every morning and facing this messed up life?
I was raised a Christian, and no matter how much I have struggled with faith, no matter how often I have tried to pull away from Jesus, He just won't let go. He's real, I know He is, I can't really explain it, but it makes sense to me and I don't know how to believe anything else. As far as I can tell, Christianity teaches that The Holy Spirit enables us to say no to sin and yes to a better way of living. This sounds so beautiful. This is what I want. I want a hope, an inspiration, an energy, an enablement, that will keep me going. Something that will help me wake up and love my neighbour. Sometimes, sometimes I think I get it, sometimes I think I've figured out how to lean on the Lord. Sometimes waking up isn't that hard, sometimes loving feels fairly easy. Other times I just want to die. Sometimes I feel betrayed by all this talk about hope. Sometimes I feel like there is no hope. The pain in the world and the disgustingness in myself is too much for me, there is nothing I can do about it, and I don't know how to depend on God. My friends try to tell me not to give up, they say they can see Him working in my life and changing me slowly. I want to think so too, but I struggle to believe it. All I know is the bad stuff in my mind that they don't see. Everyone tells me I'm not a giver upper and I want to be so inspired and inspiring that I really and truly am not a giver upper. I want to wake up and love others. I want to change into a better me. I want to sing "I will fight in the light till I give my final breath," but then the alarm goes off and my eyes open, I role over and dream of life's endings, what is the answer? How does everyone else just keep on going like that?
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