a pilgrim in NY, pt. 2


Pt. 2 of a 3-part series (read Pt. 1 here)

Moving on
By the time I began to stabilize in the midst of that situation, I was halfway through a master’s degree in religious studies. During summer 2001, my spirits began at last to buoy. God provided a car without my even seeking one, I began a program of regular exercise for the first time in my life, dabbled with internet dating, and discovered my Cheers.

Admittedly, my relationship with Rula Bula did not begin on the most noble terms. On my 23rd birthday I met a cute waiter there and developed a short-lived crush. But in the midst of a turbulent fall semester full of first dates with men I met at the bar, and struggling to comprehend a world suddenly changed, I began to have a series of conversations with other bar patrons that awakened a passion for evangelism I didn’t know I had. This was not the forced, sales-pitch evangelism I associated with Crusade, but natural conversations about God and religion that felt more like the sort of thing Frances Schaeffer might have done. Sometimes in those moments I felt my humanity so intensely it seemed I could almost weep.

The following summer I finished my thesis and prepared for the next phase of life. A May 2002 trip to New York aroused keen interest in moving to the city, but I had no success with job-searching. Though barely employed that summer (and not collecting unemployment) I somehow managed to get by and even take a trip to Seattle for a mini family reunion. During those months, God demonstrated his faithfulness to provide far beyond my basic needs.

In late July I began to consider moving to the city without a job, based on a potential roommate’s oral promise to hold a room for me until September. Although I had become increasingly comfortable in my dependence on God, it still appeared an incredibly risky step to take, and contrary to most principles of wisdom. I embarked on what proved to be a nearly two-day fast to reflect and consider, before asking three select advisors what they thought about the idea. I was determined to make the decision thoughtfully, but in a timely fashion.

Fasting was not a new discipline for me, but usually had little impact on my routine other than adding the dull ache of hunger to a still-busy day. Because of that summer’s unemployment, however, I was this time able to spend most of the day reading a John Piper book on fasting and reflecting on my relationship with God. Not until the wane of the fast did I actually pray specifically about the move. And, though not in an audible voice or any mystical communication like that, I felt a strong indication to go. From the bottom of my heart, I felt peace about the move — no reservations, no holding back, no sense that my motives were wrong — just a calm confidence that God would continue to provide.

Two of my three counselors opposed the move, but the third was strongly in favor of it, and pointed out that the other two counselors, as family members, were so concerned with my safety that they might not be seeing the whole picture. With this vote of confidence and a way to respectfully disregard the advice of counseling relatives, I chose to move. (It should be noted that after further talks with the dissenting-counselors-my-parents, they came around and ultimately offered their blessing.) Within about two weeks of that decision, I went through summer graduation ceremonies, packed my things, and boarded a plane for New York.

The two years since have been a blur. God has continued to provide me with friends outside the church, including a woman to whom I grew closer than any friend I’d ever had before. Earlier this summer that friendship and my love for her were severely tested when fundamental differences in our worldviews revealed themselves. Nevertheless, God has worked dramatically in that woman’s life over the two years since I moved here. Never before have I been able to share the gospel so candidly and repeatedly with someone, and to regularly pray with her. It seems God’s timeline with her will be much longer than I sometimes envisioned, but I am convinced He will one day complete the work He has begun.

The downside of having so many friends outside the church is that at times I have drifted away from my moorings. In all the dates I’ve had since moving here, at most one or two have been with a Christian guy. Most of the time my impatience with the celibacy of singleness prompts me to take what male attention I can get — even if I know things won’t go anywhere. In some ways, there’s even a bizarre safety about it. I have the ready-made out, so I don’t risk much by having one or two dates.

But recently I have become increasingly convicted that I really can’t date outside the church at all. This is of course tremendously frustrating — even raises a latent anger I don’t often acknowledge. Despite God’s remarkable faithfulness to me, I have a terror that He doesn’t care about my greatest, most-longstanding desire, and won’t really bring me a husband. In fact, though I feel compelled by the force of my conviction and knowledge of God to adopt a Christianity that at times feels far more radical (though strangely orthodox) than many of those around me, it seems the price of that commitment may be life-long singleness. And that is hard. Even if some guy does come along, I fear he would be the sort of tea-totalling Protestant whose cookie-cutter, unreflective theology is more about committing to a paradigm than to the dynamic, powerful God in whose story we are mere bit players. In short, I fear God would only provide a token Christian, rather than a husband by whom I could be spiritually challenged (and challenge), and through marriage to whom we would both draw closer to God. (Makes a lot of sense, right? :-o)

And yet despite the illogic above, I must also admit a terrible fear of just what change God would have in store, should He surprise me with the impossible: a husband I would respect spiritually. When you get down to it, I still fear what giving God my all would really look like. True, I never feel more alive than when I am talking to a person about God in a way that seems to really address their brokenness and need, but I’m afraid that serving God all-out will prove boring; that the parts of my personality I cherish most would be losers at the altar chopping-block. And I’m scared to engage too deeply the degree of my thirst, for fear God really won’t provide an experience as rich as so many describe.

A lot of that is probably that I haven’t been spending enough time around others who are on fire for God. Almost no one in my life has the boldness to really challenge me about life decisions that even I secretly question. Almost no one I know puts me to shame with their boldness in talking to others about God, or with the intensity of their prayer life. And yet I hunger for such community. I know such people are a rare breed, but I desire to see the work of God through others whose faith is greater than my own.

Or maybe it’s less a question of rarity and more a matter of spiritual pride. Maybe I merely lack the humility to listen to those whose lives are more conservative than my own (scant consumption of alcohol, total avoidance of course language, etc.). There’s a reason the language of self-sacrifice is phrased in terms of total mortification: the cost is absolute. Sometimes if I think that if I knew then what I do know it would be harder for me to still choose God. But make that commitment, I have done. No matter how much this “marriage” has lost its initial romantic spark, there is no turning back. And there is no telling what depths and riches lie ahead that I could’ve never, in the blush of early love, imagined.

Pt. 3 tomorrow.

posted @ 03:01 AM on Mon - August 30, 2004 remark! Email |  as quoted:
before I said ...  but more recently: 

©