But we're ahead of ourselves. The start of the day was to rise after four hours of sleep, finish packing, and head back to Biola. Discouraged by how little work I had accomplished over break and the mountain of deadlines looming ahead of me, I was focusing on taking things one step at a time, slowing chipping away at the tasks I had set for myself. Because I didn't get to campus in time, I missed chapel, for which I was grateful. It meant I could organize my emails and other such details before my day exploded in busyness. I headed over to spiritual direction but had a half hour before my appointment, so I sat at a table in the grass under the shade of the trees and finished my email. The day was hot, and with the breeze and the lazy conversation of happy people, it felt like summer. "I should go outside more often," I thought. For the first time in a while I felt a sense of peace.
In spite of this, I was anxious about going to spiritual direction. I underwent the exact process I had with my previous appointments: feeling a strong desire to cancel because I had too many other pressures and because I didn't have things figured out, or even know what I was going to talk about. But, as I told myself, spiritual direction isn't for people who their life together or who have things figured out, and anyway, it would be cowardly and selfish to back out twenty minutes beforehand. My director started us with several minutes of silence. A true blessing, because I needed gather my emotions. I wanted to be able to think clearly, but four hours of sleep and stress do not lend to stable tear ducts or coherent thought processes. At the end of the silence, she prayed to open us up, thanking God for the time of quiet that we had in that place and asking that we would carry that peace and rest into our lives, and have hearts receptive to His love.
I won't go into detail about what I said. It would be impossible to organize it anyhow, because it all tumbles out in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. Essentially, I told her that I had been able to feel God's presence in most areas of my life, that I saw Him responding to my prayers, but that I didn't hear Him speaking to me. I said that I was frustrated with my inability to reconcile the apparent contradictions of the Bible and I was discouraged and dissatisfied with the abrupt, incomplete resolution to Ecclesiastes' philosophical struggle. I expressed my confusion at the tension in my life between the benefits of accomplishing the ambitions which seem God-given and the call to lay down in green pastures which had been persistent in my mind since the beginning of my sickness.
She told me that she had wanted to read Psalm 23 to me, but that she had felt it was too cliche to begin a session with such a well-used piece of scripture. She also said that my frustration with Ecclesiastes' lack of clarity might reflect my own frustration with the tension of work and rest in my life, something I had sensed but been unable to admit. Our discussion didn't resolve any of my questions, but it brought order to the chaos of my thoughts and emotions. I realized that the problem might lay in the fact that I was not ready to sacrifice my desires concerning my life for God's.
Still processing, I went to eat lunch alone in the cafeteria. Just to have something to do, I pulled out Mere Christianity. I had been trying to read a chapter every morning as a devotional, but that had fallen apart during break, and I hadn't looked at it for a couple days. To my surprise, I found that the chapter was incredibly relevant to my situation. I have chosen those sections which really stood out to me:
"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says 'Give me All. I don't want so much of
your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to
torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch
here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it,
or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent
as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I
will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.'
Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ
Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, "Take
up your Cross"—in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next
minute he says, 'My yoke is easy and my burden light.' He means both. And one can just see why
both are true.
...The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all
your wishes and precautions—to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead.
For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call 'ourselves,' to keep personal happiness as our
great aim in life, and yet at the same time be 'good.'
We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centred on money or pleasure or
ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is
exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a
field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short:
but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper
than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.
That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It
comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you
like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in
listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter
life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings;
coming in out of the wind.
We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading
through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference
between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through. He
never talked vague, idealistic gas. When he said, 'Be perfect,' He meant it. He meant that we must go
in for the full treatment.
It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible. It
may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while
remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an
ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
...What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ —can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father—that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning."
A few hours after reading this, I ran into some friends on the way back to the dorm. I hadn't seen them since the beginning of spring break, and I hadn't realized how much I missed them. They tried to convince me to go to the park with them, where they were shooting a short film project and hang out. I declined, though I wanted to come, because of the mountain of work waiting for me when I got back to the dorm. They continued to plead with me, insisting that I could finish my work later. Finally I caved into their and my own desires and went with them. We spent the end of the beautiful afternoon by the lake, walking around and watching the ducks and geese. It was so relaxing, and such a peace settled on me that I wasn't worried about the work ahead of me, even when I thought of it. I knew that I was meant to be there, enjoying the day and the time with my friends.
When we returned to campus and went our separate ways, I finally went back to the dorm. When I reached my door, there was a note with my name on it sticking out from the crack. Thinking it was a note from a friend or an RA, I went inside the room to read it. This is what it said:
"Remember last semester? That was when you did nothing but work. This semester God is calling you to do two things: to do good work, and pursue relationships. This means focusing on growing intellectually and as a good neighbor. I hope, future self, that you can look back on this semester and see your spiritual maturity flourishing. Let God's plan be your plan. Amen"
As I read it, I was thinking, "Who could have written this? They must be really familiar with everything that is going on in my life," and then I saw the words. "Future self," I thought, "What?" At last, it hit me. I wrote the note. At the beginning of the semester, I had attended a mandatory floor meeting (the only floor meeting I have attended to date) where our RAs asked us to write a letter to ourselves. We were to give them the letters, and they were to mail them to us at the close of the semester. I had completely forgotten about this, and I was floored by the perfection in the timing and the content of the note. In no way could I have known at the beginning of the semester that these were the words I needed to hear now. Stunned, I realized that the note had been crafted not by my hand, but by God's. Through divine inspiration, my thoughts and emotions of three months ago had been molded so that they might be relevant to me at this precise moment. God was speaking to me.
I felt awed that the voice of God, manifested in a person, a book, and a letter, was having a conversation with me. My prayers were no longer a one-way street, a fax to heaven. God was actively using all the elements of my life to respond to my doubts and my questions, my requests and my desires. I wanted to cry for joy, but the great stillness of my soul overwhelmed the emotion of the moment, and I was left with my wonder. It was a profound revelation of my mind, and a call to a revolution of my spirit.
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
