Avoiding God

It dawned on me yesterday as I was cleaning my apartment that I've been avoiding God for quite some time. And by "quite some time," I mean years. A series of things led me to that conclusion. If you've read my last post, you'll know what I'll be up to this summer - eliminating noise and distractions because it has become such a hindrance in so many areas of my life. And so there have been the occasional days here recently that I won't turn on the TV or listen to music while I'm bumming around my apartment. I had big plans to go to Kansas this weekend to visit a museum I've been wanting to see (www.safarimuseum.com) but thanks to this ridiculous snow and rain we got, the plans got scrapped, which left me in my apartment all day with nothing to do.

So, I decided to fix some of the things in my apartment that had been bothering me. I had left the TV off for most of the day and had been enjoying the silence. I began to think about what I would be doing next after cleaning. I had just picked up a stack of books at the local library's book sale and so I had 8 or 9 books awaiting my attention. So, I thougth about which one I would read first. But as I'm thinking about all that, it dawns on me that here I am with all this free time, time that I could be using to read my Bible or work on my Beth Moore study and yet I'm consciously choosing not to. I, then, too, fast forward to what this summer will look like because the whole point of getting rid of the technology in my life is to focus my heart and mind on God, but yet here I am in these "pre-experiment" days and all it's turning out to be is an experiment in exercising self-control and legalism rather than what I had really intentioned - turning my heart to focus on God. I think of Psalm 86:11, which says, "Train me, God, to walk straight; then I'll follow your true path. Put me together, one heart and mind; then, undivided, I'll worship in joyful fear." That's the ultimate result I want this sumer to be about - not just living in silence, but using that silence as a means to worship him in joyful fear.

All of this to say - hopefully I'm making sense as I go - that I realized that for quite some time now I have been avoiding having conversations with God - avoiding prayer, avoiding asking God about my next steps in life, avoiding reading his Word, etc. Even when I was in church this morning, I was thinking about it some more, trying to trace back over the timeline of my life to when I really started to keep my distance from God. And I think it came my junior year of college and the summer after when a series of events happened that really forced me beyond my comfort zone and really caused me to lean hard on God. I had to let go of a particular relationship and I was also heading overseas for about 7 weeks, both of which took a toll. And at the time, I thought I was okay with everything. I really was trusting God with it all and was continually being led by the Holy Spirit through it all, seeking his guidance.

But then after that spring and summer, in hindsight I realize how much my relationship with God changed. And as I sit here today, I wonder - was I kidding myself back then about really trusting God? Have I somehow really resented God all along about those particular incidences that happened and just haven't acknowledged it? Did those events cause me to really distrust God with what was before me because I think they came with such a hefty price? I realized, too, that my awareness of the Holy Spirit's work in my life changed a lot after all that. I stopped asking God questions because the answers I had been getting for so long were causing me pain and maybe somewhere along the way I started to think that God was asking too much of me. So, I stopped going to him with my questions because quite frankly, I didn't want the answers anymore.

It's been a startling question, one I think had crossed my mind before but I don't know that I've ever been honest with myself before - am I avoiding God certain areas of my life? In all my life?

Are you?