This blog was named Tread Worn Souls for two different reasons. The first reason pertains to my love of exploration and adventure, the second pertains to my endless effort to understand myself and my restless soul. The task of exploring who I am and what I believe is no less exciting and beautiful than happening upon an unexpected waterfall during an afternoon hike. Soul searching can also be, and certainly has been for myself, an exhausting process, no less draining than being lost and alone in a cold unfamiliar place. But we must walk, or run, hike, ride, sail, swim, whichever you prefer… we must wear down the tread on our shoes and souls. As Forest Gump says: “There is an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes… where they’re going, where they’ve been.”
and so my soul is weary.
I have decided, for better or for worse, to invest a good portion of my time, energy, and relationships towards the goal of defining who I am, what I believe, and how that impacts the manner in which I live. My start down this path has already been more exhausting both emotionally and physically than anything else I have ever aspired to do. It is easier to turn away from this endeavor than from a discipline of exercising or dieting; therefore to an extent, I envy those that appear to so easily know who they are and what they believe; in the same way I envy those who, at least for the moment, have chosen to disregard the matter entirely.
I have, you could say, been weary for a long time. I have felt a burden to prove to myself, my family, and my friends that Christ Jesus is indeed who he said he is. I am realizing that I can not do that. And maybe that is not my burden to carry, perhaps I can at this point in my life only be accountable for myself, which is itself wearisome enough. I was reading recently in a book called Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, and I resonated with some of his musings about God, our efforts to believe, and also our efforts to make believers.
“What can you ever really know of other people’s souls—of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbors or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anesthetic fog which we call “nature” or “the real world” fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?”
-C.S. Lewis — Mere Christianity
While their is a unique and perhaps necessary role for mentors, friends, and counselors that might guide us in the right (or wrong) direction, in the end it is between us and God. We are, as C. S. Lewis says, “alone with Him.” I have always known this, and I think that is one of the reasons that I have had such a difficult time seeking help when I may need it (in any aspect of my life), because in the end I know that the change will come from within me, and even if you believe that God prompts change within our souls, it does not change the fact that at the end of the day it is between me and God and no one else.
Of course you could argue that we need people in our lives to support us, so that when we grow weary they are there to support us as Aaron and Hur found a stone for Moses and helped him hold his arms up. We could also argue that we are indeed alone and regardless of how long Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu sit and listen or argue with us, and the end of the day it is still between us and God, Job must account for himself.
My fight to know God leaves me exhausted, which doesn't really make sense to me. I figured that the more I drew into a relationship with Him, the more I desired to know myself and to know God, that He would help fill me with His energy and His strength.
I am so tired.
I know that some might say that I need to relax and slow down, they might say that God works on His own timeline, and that the dots will connect when the time is right, but I am not sure that I believe all of that. Nothing in this world is free, nothing is handed to us; in some way, now or years past, everything is accounted for. The only thing that is truly free, if you believe it, is the grace and mercy that God has already offered.
This is difficult to wrap my head around.
