CRASH (Part V): An Answer!

"What am I living for?"  

This has been a question I've wrestled with for months here in Dallas.  With a 9-5 job, I suddenly had all of this time on my hands.  I could come home, relax, and . . . do what?  The achiever in me thought of grand goals such as reading every book I own, or getting a second job.  The gamer in me just wanted to sit inside and play Xbox.  I had worked and fought for free time in college, and now, I had way more than I could ever dream of.  

Then, all of this stuff came up about my career path.  I had tried to solve things myself - that didn't go well.  Then, I talked it through with some of my community; and I was beginning to get a few answers.  

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My friend and I had decided that this experience may be less about what my future career would exactly be.  It was more about this: I was holding on too tightly to this path.  There have been so many times when I knew I would've followed God anywhere He told me to go; but in the back of my mind I thought,"...but I'm still going to medical school, right?"  God owed me this, right?  

Of course not!  And so, I gained some good wisdom from that talk - I was most definitely clutching this dream too tightly - so, my mindset went from a fist, to an open palm, as if to say "Do with me as You will."

But this was not the root of the problem.  The root was deeper.  

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You see, in all of this, I was avoiding the one relationship which could actually help - God.  Oh sure, I prayed a lot during this time, but I wanted an immediate answer.  Instead, I was lead into this time of suffering and struggling without an answer to my prayers.  But, I think He wanted it that way.  

The real answer came after I had tried everything else.  I was contemplating all these events, and praying with the Lord again.  And finally, something was brought to my mind - the real problem.  

The real problem went all the way back to my identity.  Imagine, if you will, that my entire identity was a 'house.'  In it, my strengths and weaknesses, purpose and direction, likes and dislikes, etc.  At the bottom, was the foundation, holding everything else up.

Sounds good, right?  What God showed me was another column, underneath that whole 'house', struggling to support the entire thing.  In that column was where I found my true satisfaction, purpose, direction - and that was in my career and the things that I can do.  That column propped up everything.  And that's what all of this was about - that pillar was crumbling, and so the entire house was falling!  Without knowing exactly what I would be doing, (I mean, I just had a little doubt about how passionate I am!) the entire thing fell.

And so, the answer was this: My satisfaction, my joy and purpose will never be satisfied by a career.  I will never be satisfied by how much I can do or get done.  What I do is not meant to support the rest of me - it can't!  And, it didn't - it fell apart when things got tough.  

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So, I want to touch on the importance of identity.  Specifically, what our foundation is.  If everything else were to fall apart, what would we have left?  Our money?  A spouse?  A son or daughter?  Creativity?  Something we've done?  Our body?  What would we try to find our hope in?

Well, here's a newsflash - whatever we put there is going to eventually fail!  We will lose money, get old, lose a loved one, become disabled. . .  Anything and everything we fall back on will fail.  (Just ask Brett Favre).

Apparently, my faith has been in my performance for a long time, and I had built up a nice pillar for my career.  And then, with a little stress, it just crumbled away this week.  A very weak foundation, indeed.

I submit that we must put our full trust and faith in something else.  That is, someone else: Jesus Christ.  The bible says that He loved us, even in our rebellion; He came to bring us to the Truth, despite all the world's lies; and He died and rose again, allowing us to come into a relationship with a true Foundation.  It is only in Him, the eternal lover of mankind, who calls us to Him, where I can put my true faith and trust.  

Because everything else will fail.

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"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." - Mathew 7:24-28

(Don't fret, there is one last lesson coming in this series!)

CRaSH is a short series of lessons learned from a time of deep struggle in my life.  View all posts here.