The Price Of Authenticity

Everyone wants to be real.

Everyone wants to be authentic and vulnerable and deep.

We all want to skip past the first impressions, the small talk, the acquaintances stage of friendship and dive into the murky unknown of someone's soul.

I see it all over social media...

"I hate small talk. Let's have real conversation about life, your soul, something deep, blah blah blah."

Our society is begging for honesty and realness. We're done with the how do you do's and surface level conversation, and there is a craving for something deeper. There is a strong preference of having meaningful conversation rather than cheap and empty words.

But are we really ready to create the atmosphere of vulnerability that the world is craving?

I don't think so.

The world is crying out HONESTY. VULNERABILITY. AUTHENTICITY.

And yet we're not willing to put in the work to get there. If we expect more than cheap words, we have to be willing to pay the price for authenticity. I think there are two basic roadblocks to reaching our goal.

Boredom Is Not An Option

There's always a call to more.

We will never master Christianity. We will never run out of things to know about God, the world, people. We never have to be bored.

I've been silent in writing for a while, not on purpose... just out of busy-ness and an absence of thoughts to write about. It's funny because I'll randomly get a thought sometimes of "wow, I should write a blog post on this," and then when I sit down to write, I suddenly become apathetic or unwilling to make myself think. I have to consciously will away thoughts of unworthiness or inadequacy.

But that's not what I want to focus on in this post. Something the Lord has put on my heart lately is the fact that there is always something more to learn. There is always something to be doing or learning to fill my time with. I should never experience boredom in my walk with Christ.

Life Is Not Always Friday

My favorite days are and have always been Friday's.

I've always had school on Friday's, but that feeling of being done with school and it's finally the weekend... well, that's my favorite feeling. Pure freedom.

Some thoughts:

I live a blessed life. I go to school at the best and most beautiful university. I live with my best friends. My hair is growing at an acceptable pace. I now have friends all over the country... all over the world in fact. I serve a God who faithfully meets with me everyday.

I have so much to look forward to in life, but I pray that I would serve God just as faithfully even when I don't have so much to look forward to. The whole "I will praise You in this storm" theme comes to mind when I say that, but I don't think we regularly dwell on that when life is going as it should.

It's actually easier for me to be in relationship with God when life is going well. It's easier for me because I credit all good things to come from Him.

But when storms do come, when I have a torrential downpour of days that don't feel like Friday's, it's hard for me to cling to God when I need Him the most. I get distracted and try to balance everything on my own during a time that I should be depending on Him the the most. In feeling that He has turned His favor from me, I turn my back on Him.

The War Between Remembering And Forgetting

To the one who can't move on...

I understand you now.

I never have before, and I'm guilty of judging you I'll admit. But I understand your feelings now.

I understand how you are plagued with a vast montage of memories that never seem to quit playing over and over in your head. They dance in and out of your thoughts in the silence of your solitude. Repeatedly they follow an endless track that jerks your emotions high and low like a rollercoaster.

It's hard because those memories hold so much joy, and it feels like your life currently has gone...well, downhill. And of course to climb uphill again means to make new and better memories, but yet you cling to the old ones in fear of forgetting.

How could you forget, you ask? I mean you just said those memories were so full of joy, so how could one forget about them?

Good question.

I guess you don't forget... you just have to push them aside. You feel like your brain can still hold the big stuff - the really fun, exhilarating, happiest moments are locked away in the long-term. But suddenly the details get brushed into the cracks and crevices of the brain to create space for the new thoughts and memories moving in. A fine layer of dust collects over the details that were once showcased at the front of your mind. They don't fade from existence; you just forget they're there. You can't juggle it all - new things, old things - and you feel helpless as the details slip away into oblivion.

Thus begins a war in the mind between remembering and forgetting.