Peniel - Day 1...7:28pm

It’s been a fairly productive afternoon, considering I spent most of it trying to run away. Yes, I balked already. Not thirty minutes after my last entry a question popped into my mind. I immediately began fighting the compulsion to begin writing it out, to work through it with pen and paper. Partly because I don’t know the answer. Partly because I know I’ve been living the wrong side of the question. But mostly my fear stems from knowing the answer has little to nothing to do with God and everything to do with me, something I’m afraid to look at. My mind starts acting like a horror movie viewer talking to the potential victim who can’t hear him. Don’t go in there. Whatever you do, don’t go in there! The monster is in there, the killer. But the actors never listen, and neither did the rest of my mind.

But I tried to stop it. In twenty minutes or so I felt more anxious, not quite the right word, antsy, that’s it, I felt more antsy than I have in a long while. I couldn’t get still, physically, mentally, or emotionally. All the while, the question kept turning over in my brain, but why…?

I had a spiritual advisor who told me once she stopped worrying about when she pointed out something I needed to do or change and my first reaction was no, I don’t think so. She said I fight it, but then I get off by myself and work it out and come to the place I need to be and do what needs to be done, because the no is fear and underneath that I’m a true seeker and willing. I don’t know why I always fight looking into the scary place, why I make myself miserable trying to keep myself from looking, because, in the end, I always look. And when I finally do look, I have a tendency to beat the subject to death. To talk it over or write it out until I finally see it, get it, understand it.

But today I stalled. I had to fight not to leave the camp. The compulsion to go…well, to forget this alone with God thing for a little while, take a break, and go get laid was nearly overwhelming. I probably would have lost the fight, except it scared me to see that as I grew more and more uncomfortable that’s where my impulse took me. I treated the call away the same as I would have if the impulse had been to leave, drive to the nearest liquor store about twenty miles away and buy a bottle. I stayed, but I still couldn’t look deeply at the question. Wouldn’t look is more truthful.

Suddenly I felt tired. Fighting God will take a lot out of you. So, I took a nap. I slept for about two hours, had two strange but quite revealing dreams, and woke freezing. The area cooled quickly as the sun set. There is no question in my mind that these dreams were my subconscious working through some of my relationship issues. I think I may have even made some progress, and I can think of a few people who will probably be glad to hear that.

Upon waking up, besides being cold, I felt angry. So I built a fire (yes, I managed to accomplish this feat), and it will be ready for cooking soon. Then I sat down and started doing what I knew all along I needed to do. Write it out.

I just heard an owl. Great. Native beliefs of hearing an owl being a harbinger of death flood my mind. Maybe I’m about to die? Feels like it. But then, as bizarre as it sounds, you have to die to live. To find my life I have to lose it.

Ok, dinner is cooking, a little vegetable meal I feel my dear friend Maegan would appreciate. While it’s cooking, I’ll surrender, quit stalling, and truly begin to write it out.

The ever-so-frightening question. Why is God’s forgiveness not enough for me? It looks like such a simple question written out like that, but no, it’s not simple, and there are dangers beneath the surface. I can feel them, even if I can’t see them.

Why, if I have God’s forgiveness for what I’ve done in the past, do I need the forgiveness and approval of people, not just friends, but of strangers, of this mass consciousness we call society? Why, if I believe that I am forgiven by God, do I live as though I am not or as though I don’t believe it? That’s quite a can of worms you got there sonny.

Do I believe I’ve been forgiven? Yes, but there’s a voice that just said, “sure, but it doesn’t matter.” Now that’s stupid. Of course it matters. But part of me feels like it doesn’t. Why? Why doesn’t it matter that I’ve been forgiven my past choices and mistakes?

It’s quite simply that I feel God’s forgiveness is of no value. There. I said it. What’s it good for? Sure, I believe it means everything when standing before the judgment seat, but I’m not there, I’m here. What good is it here and now? God’s forgiveness and a dollar won’t get me a cup of coffee these days.

This is blasphemy, I know, but the ground isn’t shaking, lightning isn’t striking, and the owl shut up an hour ago. So, I’ll continue. God’s forgiveness doesn’t mean much to me when Joe Blow doesn’t forgive me and throws my job application in the trash. God’s forgiveness may take away the guilt, but it doesn’t wipe the slate clean, and it doesn’t mean that much to me when four out of the five people I’ve been interested in romantically in the past year have these damn lists of what a man has to have and can’t have done to be in their life and my past, the one I’ve been forgiven of, gets me x after x on qualification after qualification on said lists. Well yes, I see I’ve missed every question on your little survey there, but you see, I’ve been forgiven by God. Whatever. And another lost connection walks away never to call again.

And the coyotes are stirred up now. What a chilling sound. The fact is it’s all foolishness, because it does matter. I know in my mind that it matters, that God’s forgiveness is the base for all the positive changes in my life. But my emotions, don’t care about what my mind says, and I lose sight of the fact that it matters when I’m hurting, frightened and alone. And I lose that vision quickly too. I’m mad. I’m mad and treat forgiveness from my creator as though it has no value because I haven’t gotten what I want when I want it.

God, this is embarrassing. I’m a toddler throwing a tantrum because he can’t have his own way. Sheesh. How sad and silly is that? Selfishness and self-centeredness truly is the root of my problem.

So why was I so afraid to look at that? Because God doesn’t have to change anything in me to fix this problem. I do. I have to sacrifice myself. My will, my demand to have my own way, which is the root of my selfishness and self-centeredness, must die by my own hand if I am to live out the prayer I prayed earlier today. And that, for me, is scarier than hell.

But that’s me just not seeing, not understanding. My faith can not be based on what I can understand with my mind. The ants in the bed a few feet away from my tent have no clue that when I put the apple core in the west side of the their mound it was in hopes that they wouldn’t explore east and get in my tent. They don’t know what I was thinking, nor do they understand my motives. But they are enjoying the apple.

I can’t understand God any more than those ants can understand me. The wisest of all us humans can’t fathom the depths of the universe, much less the God who created it. What arrogance on my part to declare that if I can’t understand it, it must not be. If I can’t comprehend the purpose it must have none. Do I even really want a God I can wrap my mind around? I have to choose to respond in faith that God loves me and wants the best for me and can provide that even when I don’t understand it, especially when I don’t understand it.