“Stay at arms length, God”. I’m talking to God as I sit in bed and try to distract myself until I fall asleep. Afraid of my mind and the ideas that tumble through it in the late watches of the night. I need distraction. Something to take my mind off the world and its challenges. It’s not the everyday challenges that are difficult.
Those seem easy in comparison to the thing that stands in front of me. And if I’m honest, I don’t allow an inspection of the past to sit in my thoughts for very long. I have this compartment in my mind that I can shove that big scary past. Some may call it running, but I call it surviving.
Why tackle the impossible? And why go through memories that are much easier kept as just thoughts? Leave them to the dungeon so that I can fall asleep. A new morning brings new contemplations, which are usually much more manageable and easier to process.
Does this sound familiar? Are there challenges that run through your head that you haven’t dealt with? There are for me. I’m not ashamed to tell anyone that big scary things sit in my mind and in my past, which is where I want to leave them. When they decide to rear their ugly head, I decide it’s time for a new distraction. Perhaps a video game, a YouTube video with some cute kittens or my new fascination, sharks.
I want REAL and AUTHENTIC
For some reason sharks have always been something I wanted to get physically close to. That may sound strange considering they see me as food and if I happen to be in their vicinity, they wouldn’t mind eating me. But in 2016 I went shark cage diving off the coast of South Africa.
To say it was amazing would be an understatement. We saw 8 different white sharks, from 6 to 12 feet long. And let me tell you, when they are inches from your face, it’s much better than if you watch it on YouTube.
I’m a sucker for real and authentic, it’s what I was looking for my whole life. I found a piece of it as I swam in the same water with sharks. As I scoured the earth searching, I found that what I was looking for was with me the whole time. I grew up with Him and memorized Scripture about Him. I went to a building every Sunday with people that talked about Him.
My answer, was God. Real and authentic, not fake and pretend. Which is what I sometimes feel I’m living with now. In my first world, coffee drinking, car and house buying society. Stuff has taken the place of real and we wonder why we can’t find happiness.
Arms Length
So then, why do I keep this real and authentic God at arms length? Why did I search for something and find it, only to keep this God at a distance? Perhaps, I could ask you the same question :)
My challenge to myself and the reader: If God is real and authentic, then can we be real and authentic with Him?
Jason LaLone was on staff at YWAM Brisbane and is currently in America working with Truro Anglican Church located in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about discipleship, taking Jesus’ command to make disciples a practical reality that he can live on a daily basis. He loves lasagna, cats and used to dislike Monday's, making him most like Garfield.
Jason LaLone’s previous articles might be viewed at: http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/Jason-LaLone.html