CONFESSIONS AND TRUTHS

I just arrived home from a long day downtown and I admit, it feels good to finally be getting this down on paper (or.. not really paper.. you get the idea.) I've been thinking it over all day and it's become a bit of a headache. Just a warning, this is a long blog.. hang in there.
It's been almost two and a half months since I moved to Vancouver. I get asked a lot why I decided to move here. I guess I haven't really had much of an answer.. or more honestly, I think there may be more than a hundred answers and none of them seem quite right on their own. Perhaps I still don't have a good answer to that question, because in all truthfulness.. I still don't know.
For a long time before I moved I knew that I wanted to. For a few years my plan was to move to California (mostly for the film industry as that was my career-path of choice at the time.) About a year and a half ago, though, it became obvious to me that California was not God's idea.. and neither was film. This came as kind of a slap in the face (for those who have heard that story, you'll understand.. for those who haven't, feel free to ask.)
I spent a year trying desperately to figure things out and decide what I should do with my life. British Columbia had been on my mind for awhile.. years really. Aside from the California plans, it had always been where I wanted to be. I've never had a good solid reason to back that up, except that I was born here... but in reality, I think it makes little difference.
Anyway, I did a lot of praying about it and in January I decided that I would move. After pushing back my moving date three times, I finally bought my plane ticket and made the move. I didn't really know what to expect when I got here. However, what I was NOT expecting was two and a half months of depression and spiritual battle.
It's been a rough couple months. I've felt uninspired and essentially uninterested in life and the world around me. Being unable to figure out why left me frustrated. Sure, it's difficult starting life in a new city, but I knew it ran a lot deeper than that.
I've always been a church-goer. I don't always feel like going, but I shutter to think where I'd be if it weren't for my church family.
Leaving my church in Ontario was maybe the hardest thing I've ever done, but I was blessed to find a church here almost immediately. I went this morning prepared to learn something.. maybe find some inspirational tidbit worth writing about.. who knows. I wasn't really prepared to get hit in the head with a brick of a reality check.. but that's what happened. (Thank you Pastor Norm.)
The sermon was about glory.. giving God the glory.. worshiping in our everyday lives.. perhaps these topics are not so new, but here's what was revealed to me.. my bittersweet moment of truth.
For the past couple months I have spent most of my time wallowing in self-pity. Now I know why. I spent much of my life in Ontario building up a reputation. When you live in a city of 35,000 it's fairly easy to have a reputation that sticks for a lifetime.. this can be good or bad. At any rate, it was fairly clear that I knew who I was and people knew me. I developed a strange sort of self-confidence and my friends were more than happy to feed it. During highschool I knew that perhaps for the first time ever, there were people who wanted to be me. I knew that there were people who practically worshiped the ground I walked on. I knew I was cool and respected. People liked me. I liked me. That seems like a fairly safe combination.. until you move.
I guess I'm discovering more and more what it means to give everything to God. Everything including my pride, my confidence, my hunger for admiration. Sometimes God does have to take away things in our lives in order for us to realize that we've lost our focus. For me it meant taking away my reputation which had become how I was defining myself. It wasn't a bad reputation really. For the most part, people knew what I believed and respected me for that. In itself, it wasn't a bad thing... maybe that's why it was so hard to see. Today my pastor talked about worshiping. We are all made to worship and we all do worship. The question, 'what are we worshiping?' maybe doesn't get asked often enough. It can change daily.. or it can stay the same.. It can be obvious.. or maybe not so much..

I think that where I moved had little to do with the lesson I'm learning.. for now, anyway. Maybe the most important thing was that I moved at all. What mattered most to me was taken away. I can no longer live hiding under my reputation. I can no longer worship my abilities, my life, the affirming words of others.. truth be told, it's not worth it anyway. All of that is dirt in comparison to God, the one who is worthy of ALL our praise.

"You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands"
-Psalm 63:1-4