Being Myself

Again I am sitting down to blog, but there is so much floating around in my head that I am not sure where to begin except to just type. 

I like having things worked out before I say them. I am realizing that I have a propensity to do the same for the other types of communication as well. I don't really have anything "worked-out" right now. No nice conclusion to get to or theme to follow. Except that God is urging me, in his gentlemanly way, to get out of my comfort zone yet again. 

Be yourself.

That is what I keep feeling and hearing. But why is this so hard? I guess there is always room for another existential crisis, but I thought I had gone through enough of those in college to have figured out who I am already. 

What I have known for a long time is that I have people pleasing tendencies. Almost without thinking I try to be what people want me to be, and do what people what me to do. I usually don't exactly know what people want, but I assume. Often I am right on, but more recently I have been wrong, hurting myself and others in my folly. 

This probably all is being compounded because right now as I am living in another culture. I cannot just assume that people understand me or my motives for doing things. It causes me to think, not just the usual twice before I do things, but I now have to think three times in hopes to prevent offence or misunderstanding.  

I have learned a good deal about Indian and Nepali cultures, but even still I am running off assumptions. One thing I do know is that it is very rare to get a straight answer from people especially if you have offended them. So I have just been keeping my head down and trying to mind my own business. But is that really being myself?

I want deep connections here, but I feel like I cannot ever hope to earn a place in this culture. I want to speak out, especially to the challenge the church, but where do I even begin as I am an outsider who will never be allowed to be an insider. There is so much injustice, so much dishonesty, and such a disparity between the rich and the poor. So much need for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. 

I guess it comes back to prayer. Prayer is the very first step to changing things. The next is a radical pure life lived as an example. This is all we can really do. But there is no way to measure our progress or our proximity to the goal. The goal is completely out of our reach. 

Why are the simple things so hard to really accept and to really do? If I really accept this then all my big expectations of changing the world, seeing revival sweep over India, seeing hundreds of children snatched from the fires of hell and given loving homes, and seeing the church really act like the Bride of Christ can never be realized as my imagination has painted them. 
Do I give up these dreams? I think that would kill me. 
Do I keep up the delusion and live a life of appointment? Sounds fun. Not. 
Do I dream smaller? Maybe. 

But it is still painful to realize that all my dreams and desires for my life might come to nothing. Maybe that is the problem, that they are all MY dreams and desires.   

I have been praying that God would give me the desires of his heart. Maybe this is what He is doing... stripping me of my desires and replacing them with His; stripping me of my expectations for my life so He can give me His own expectations. 

Who has God made me to be? What had He made me to do? I thought I knew, but now I honestly don't have many answers. 

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 

I guess all that I can do is keep trusting in this promise the Lord has made and wait for Him to fulfill it.