Let Go, My Soul

I’ve always been a pretty reckless person.  This probably reveals some deeper implications around privilege, but my whole life I’ve just lived with the assumption that I can generally do what I want and that nothing bad will happen to me.  I’ve got a lifetime of examples, but here are a few that might help you understand:

• Growing up, we’d spend a lot of weekends at the deer lease (yup, Texas), and I can remember as early as age 10 or 11 sneaking off into the woods in the middle of the night with a machete to explore on my own (Sorry, mom & dad, but all’s well that ends well, yeah?).
• When I was living in Tahoe, I was constantly chasing after bears because I never saw them in the wild before and I wanted to take their picture.
• I thought it would be funny to throw a homemade dry ice bomb at a cop car in college.  It wasn’t.
• Once on a ziplining tour in a foreign country, I ditched my carabiner to make it more exciting.
• Also in said foreign country, I ignored my snorkeling instructor’s warning about staying out of a dangerous area in the water.  This one did not turn out so well but that’s a story for another day.

It’s funny though, because emotionally, I’ve always played it super safe.  No one who knows me well (and no guy that’s ever tried to date me, lol) would ever call me reckless when it comes to my feelings.  Vulnerability has always been really hard for me.  There’s not a lot that scares me, but I am terrified of people truly knowing me and not loving me.  It’s hard to even write a blog about it but at least I don’t have to look at any of you while I say it, haha.

So anyway, I’ve pretty much mastered the art of false vulnerability.  People think I’m opening up to them, but it’s still very calculated and then I just get them to talk about themselves so I don’t have to talk about me.  This is actually pretty easy because I do genuinely care about people and I love talking about feelings in general, just not my own.  So while the people who know me well are onto my little games, most people who know me are surprised to realize how much I struggle with this.  God has grown me a lot in this area but I know I will probably deal with this on some level for the rest of my life.

I recently realized that it’s not just humans that I do this with.  My prayers are always pretty safe as well.  A while back, there was something in particular I was praying about and I was so scared to tell the Lord what I really desired in the situation.  So I just kept praying things like, “Whatever your will is, please do it,” or “Even if XYZ doesn’t happen, I will trust you.”

Don’t get me wrong, those prayers aren’t wrong in and of themselves.  But I could just feel him calling me to more.  What he finally spoke really clearly to my heart was this:

“Don’t you know that your desires are safe with me?”

Because here’s the thing – he’s going to do what he’s going to do.  Prayers are not about changing his mind.  Thank God for that.  He knows more than I do, so it’s very likely that the thing I’m praying for is something he already knows is not for my good.  If that’s the case, he has no intention of giving it to me, and that’s because he is such a loving father.  I don’t pray to convince him to do what I want.

But my desires are safe with him.  He already knows them anyway.  I realized I was not praying for what I wanted because I was scared that he wasn’t going to answer me and then I would just feel stupid for praying for the wrong thing in the first place.  So basically, if I prayed for nothing but “his will” then I could never be wrong.  It was still all about me. I can’t believe I didn’t see that this was just another manifestation of my pride and refusal to be vulnerable.

So since then, I’ve been trying to pray boldly and specifically for whatever my heart desires.  The “whatever you will, Lord” prayer is still there, along with daily prayers that if my desires don’t align with his, that he would change them.  But I don’t hide from him anymore.  If there’s anybody I can be reckless with, it’s him.