Greater than Gravity

Have you ever heard the phrase "I'm not sure you understand the gravity of the situation"...? People use this phrase to give importance to a situation or problem. Mostly they are just using a bit of sarcasm for someone who just isn't getting it! I find that lately I have been screaming this statement to myself!

Before I talked a bit about this school that I and several others seem to be enrolled in called the school of blissful confusion. About how a mass of different feelings, both good and bad will crash together leaving the mind and heart that was in the middle utterly bewildered.

I feel I have been called to devote my life to the body of Christ, working for his kingdom inside the Church. I have not read this new book yet by Rob Bell but I join in agreeing with his book title - Jesus wants to save Christians. It is here where gravity starts weighing me down and causing the feelings I earlier described to poor in like a flash flood! I fear. I doubt my current abilities and I doubt my potential to improve on those abilities. I fear my lack of organization will cause everyone to abandon me. I fear everything will be lost in the black hole of my forgetfulness. Gravity is pretty heavy at this point.

To add weight. I have been to New York city only once and it was absolutely amazing. The largest city I had previously been to was Atlanta so I was not so prepared for its magnitude. I was in New Jersey and had a day off so we decided to drive to New York and check out ground zero. I remember being still quite some distance from the city when I first laid eyes on the sky line. It was beautiful. The buildings were absolutely incredible. I had just turned twenty one at the time but I might as well had turned 10! I was probably giggly and a bit annoying to the friends I was with. As we got closer I became more excited but some how nervous at the same time. The city was growing with every minute we drove in its direction. I can see now that New Yorkers are equipped with some special tools to survive in this incredible place. How did they get them? Were they born with them? Has the city always been the same size to those who have lived in it their entire life? Do they feel the same about its majesty that first-timers do?

I apply these questions to church and to my calling and I say to myself, "Kyle, do you fully understand the gravity of the situation?" Everyday I get closer and closer to what I believe God is calling me to and that flash flood I mentioned makes me gasp for air!

The calling continues to grow and I continue to ask God to make me strong enough to hold onto the promises we have. Here are a few of my favorites: Through the word and by the power of the Holy Spirit I say that all things are possible for those who love the lord and are called according to his will for them! Through the word and by the Holy Spirit I say that his strength is made known in my weakness. Through the word and by the power of the Holy Spirit I say that it is God who works in me to will and act according to his good purpose.

Take a deep breath! The calling is great and the weight may seem heavy but these promises allow me to not be held under the surface and swept away by the currents. I know that through all the confusion and through of the doubts my God, the creator of all things, is capable and faithful to me, a child he loves.

He is greater than Gravity.

School of blissful confusion…?

If I were a betting man I would say at some point in your life you have a had a mixture of feelings, ranging from bad to good, all at the same time causing you to feel incredibly confused. No doubt feelings of insignificance, nervousness, and fear are feelings we do not like to have. We see people who have gone out before us, in the field in which we want to work or live and we see the incredible things that they have accomplished. We see their seemingly supernatural level of creativity and ability. And we wonder, how on God’s green earth will I ever be able to do that?! We see the risk that was taken and cry at night because there is no way you would be able to take that leap! Maybe I am the only one who has felt these feelings. But there is the other side, the feelings we love to have: excitement, power, zeal, and a feeling of wanting to wait no longer and just conquer the world. What happens when we run into a situation that causes these feelings to collide at the highest possible level all at the same time?! I would say this typically happens when you are dealing with the thing in which you were made for. The job or mission your life demands you to do and you will not be happy unless you’re in the middle of painting the masterpiece that is your life! This is the school of blissful confusion.

This ridiculous barrage of intense feelings should no doubt send any sane human on a path to bitter confusion. Yet in my experience there is an interesting feeling of peace and contentment.

The only way to explain it is to not explain it. I shouldn’t even continue because I would end up trying and confuse you even more. For some crazy unexplainable reason I know I am in the right place this very moment. I am in the middle of this war of emotions and I yet God has granted me some sort of immunity to negative side effects. This invincibility to the damaging cross fire of emotions lets me know that I am supposed to be feeling these emotions; I am learning by living them out, fighting through them. It is crazy, I know, but all of this is to prepare me, to make me ready, capable, and unafraid to see the canvas, and paint. The learning happens with every turn of failure and success, and with every loss and every victory. Each positive emotion works hand in hand with its opposite negative emotion and if we allow him, God will cause the outcome to be the colors of our life.

I’m not sure if you have felt this before. Maybe you have not yet been placed in a position where God has set your life’s canvas up on the stand and has called you to grab the brush. All I can offer is my experience. I offer to you advice solely out of the truth that has been in my life up this point. Know that God has your life’s masterpiece pictured in his head and if you allow him to teach you in the school of blissful confusion, which I am still a student of, you will soon be painting that heavenly masterpiece that is your life.