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The Beautiful Letdown

Yeah. It's true. I am a rebel...without a cause. Just a stubbornness and "me-do" attitude because why would God be able to handle me better than me?! Just because he created me? Has a plan to prosper and not to harm me? Knitted me in my mother's womb? Knows me better than I know me?! Come on! P-lease!

Yeah. That's the attitude that has gotten me here. Where is here? Here is the place where I feel doomed to be once again because I can't won't really let go and let God do his thing in my life. I am SO afraid that he won't show up to get me through it and I can't won't deal with the disappointment from him that I have had with everyone else I ever trusted before. I can't won't allow that vulnerability. I hate saying can't. That's why I replace it with the truth of the matter. It's not that I can't, it's that I won't. Fear keeps me from it. 

I am afraid of the letdown. What if I lay it all on the line and trust that God will meet me there and he doesn't show up? What if I lay it all on the line and he shows up and delivers me in a way I hadn't thought of and I totally miss it and think he didn't show up, but he did and it's me still keeping me from seeing him work in my life? Sometimes, my "me-do" attitude and my independence and my too-stubborn-to-let-someone-help-attitude are what hold me in the place where I am stuck...whirling...all because I rebel against the possibility, no the reality of what the Bible tells me about my God. The Bible tells me: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." in Matthew 7:7, ESV. Matthew goes on to say, "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” (21:22).

Yet, my fear keeps me from it embracing these truths. My fear of rejection. My fear of letting go of "control" in my life--when so much is out of my control to begin with. My fear of being let down. Jon Foreman, the lead singer of Switchfoot, explains the meaning behind their song, Beautiful Letdown, and it's truth is resounding in my life:

Beautiful Letdown - Physics tells us that everything on this planet will fail us eventually. Trust someone, fall in love: your scars will tell the same story. Entropy, pain, beauty, love, hope... mix them together and call it living. The choice that remains is where we go to find meaning and truth. The biggest failures and disappointments in my life have led me to look beyond what money or power or friends can buy. When you're face down at the very bottom of who you are, and there is no formality or pretence to cling to, all your masks fall off. In this broken place, our lives can be seen for what they are, no more no less; we are ourselves. The question is this: What happens after the twin towers in our lives fall? Do we become bitter and hateful or does redemption come into focus? I've been on both sides...only one is beautiful.

Now, I am left to decide what I do with this truth. Do I submit and surrender my heart to the Lord, or do I continue to be let down by my own fear. Fear of being let down, fear he won't be all I believe him to be...even when I know he's met me in the midst of the worst times and the best. Being vulnerable--believing that his "more" is real and I can live in that and leave that which I know is scary. Now, I just need to let go and step faithfully into his waiting presence.

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