Coming Home

I've always liked to be recognized. I remember in the 4th grade, me and this dude named Joe Bradley would always compete against each other to see who could finish arithmetic worksheets first. He usually won. In the 5th grade, I wanted so badly to represent our class in the school spelling bee, but my teacher picked a girl instead (Props to excellent female spellers.) When my music history professor would pick out papers to read to the class, a small voice in the back of my head would hope that he would read mine.

Here's an intimate fact for you: My mother is a dental hygenist, but I have poor dental hygeine (she reads this, too.) I think it was all that camping I did when I was a kid, when I would go for a week at a time without touching a bar of soap or a toothbrush. Ah, being a little boy definitely had it's perks - kept the girls away, that's for sure. But that's no proper excuse for a 20-year-old dude, but it's the truth. So there will be stretches where I perform no kind of dental cleaning on myself except for a piece of Orbit gum. I'll go around and talk with people, laugh, smile, pray, preach, yell, and sing, and no one says a thing to me. But all of the sudden it comes crashing down when I catch a whiff of my own breath. It doesn't happen very often, but for some reason, one breath will waft up through my nostrils and I'll recoil with disgust and say, "Have I been walking around all this time with breath that kicks like Jackie Chan?" I've heard that we're immune to our own body odor too, but other people can only wish that they were immune. Sometimes, I'll catch someone's nose wrinkle up, or a stifled laugh, and I'll do a quick pit-sniff, or just turn red in the face. For some reason, I'm the last person to realize that I stink.

In following Christ, there are times where I am ashamed to be the last person to find that I stink. My prayers are stale and empty, My smiles are fake, my sharing and preaching of the Gospel is over-rehearsed, arrogant, and flimsy, and my soul sags under the unbearable weight of imagined expectations and shame. I try so hard to meet with and pray for everyone that I know that my time with everyone is rushed and shallow. There are times when I look at myself and say, "What have I become?" There are times when I look inside and see the very things that I hate; the very things that I tell other people not to do. There are times when I am speaking in front of a group, and I feel like just sitting down. Speaking scares the crap out of me - not because I'm afraid of public speaking, or because I feel that my small knowledge of the Bible is inadequate, but because I'm afraid people will write me off as a hypocritical, fake, unrealistic Christian. There are times when I scare the crap out of me, and I think about the phrase, "The higher you go, the harder you fall." There are times when I wonder if who I am, who I pretend to be, and who I wish I could be even matters at all.

But it's in that moment that I collapse back into the arms of GOD, my Abba. It's in that moment that a small, still voice whispers in my ear, "It's going to be OK - just stay awhile, and be still." It's in that moment that I close my eyes and I wonder why I ever left. It's in that moment that I remember what it means to surrender. And it feels good. Amen.

"For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" (Romans 8:13-16)

This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me

This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me

And I, I’m desperate for You
And I, I’m lost without You
(Breathe, Michael W. Smith)