Uncertain Ramblings

I like to write very succinctly. I often write long lines of description, with the intent that the reader will understand both the internal dialogue occurring and the external environment in which it occurred. Whether or not I succeed at this I'm not sure, but I know that concise description and precise diction are at least ideals I strive for in my writing. That being said, this time I don't feel like I can fulfill those hopes and expectation placed on myself. Sometimes I just need to ramble on. The reason being that sometimes I'm forced to write before I'm sure my own thoughts on what I need to write on. So I hope that through throwing my disjointed and still forming thoughts on paper (or an electronic screen) that I might come to some conclusion.

This past week I was assigned the task of making a cross at least 2 ft. tall and then carrying it with me all week, everywhere I went. The reason we were supposed to do this? As far as I could tell it was to see what would happen if we took Matthew 16:24 literally for a week and actually bore our crosses daily. Would God work tremendous miracles, would people be drawn, would we get persecuted, or would we just get a lot awkward looks and maybe a few questions on it? Well it turned out it was the final one, not much happened when carrying my cross around. Unlike some others in my class I did get a few questions about it from strangers. One wanted to know what kind of wood I used, one wanted to know if the school I said had assigned this assignment was the local community college (which made me laugh. The public education system is usually fairly weary of religious expression), and one wanted to know if it was a wooden sword. Not the most thought provoking questions. In the end, the week came and went and nothing much happened.

Now don't get me wrong, I had plenty of funny random experiences because of it. One day my car wouldn't start so I ended up having to run ten minutes to work through downtown Salem in jeans, a t-shirt and carrying my cross. That little adventure got me a, "Don't drop it!" and a, "Well, would ya lookie there!" yelled at or about me. Another day I had an opportunity to go shooting and me and two other students got to walk in store to buy ammo for the gun, all of us holding crosses. Needless to say the woman asked for identification and I'm pretty sure she is still scanning the news to see if there has been a radical christian shooting incident. I also had several good conversations with Ex-Christian co-workers about the relevance of the cross, our societies discomfort with overt religious symbolism, and the possible existence of nothingness. It also led to a conversation in which I had to joy of telling a co-worker that I did not fear death, after he asked on the topic, with the reasoning being, "It helps when you think you're going to heaven."

So plenty happened, but nothing extreme. In the end when asked about my thoughts on bearing my cross by an acquaintance my conclusion was, "Mildly inconvenient." My main concern became the inconvenience of carrying another item around with me and having another hand filled. In the end I came to a point of simple uncertainty. With no directly influential conversations coming out of my cross experience and no strong persecution (Except for one trucker who yelled something out his window but I couldn't tell what he said...so it doesn't really count) or any other miraculous experience I simply became uncertain about the whole experience. One person told me that the Cross represents death and every time I carried it I was supposed to be dying to myself...but I never really felt like it made me die to self. Another person told me it was supposed to make me remember Christ constantly, but in the end I was usually more focused on how many flips I could get my cross to do while throwing it up and catching it, or how much I did or did not look like I was carrying a wooden sword. This whole cross experience came in a time of uncertainty as well. I had thought that I had felt the Holy Spirit telling me that by October I would have or at least know of a new job I going to be going into...but October 1st came and went and nothing happened. So in this time of realizing that apparently I'm not very good at discerning the Holy Spirit's voice in my life, I was again faced with a task that yielded uncertain results.

Therefore, my conclusion is to trust God. God knows what is going on and if I needed to know something I'm sure He would make it clear. I don't know how carrying my cross effected others. Maybe somebody was encouraged, convicted, challenged, or given peace through seeing me with the cross. Maybe my conversations with my co-workers will be used to unforeseen effects. Maybe something miraculous will happen, maybe not. I have no idea either way, but I trust God is at work. If there is one thing I realized about carrying my cross it is that, while it did feel like all eyes were on me, it also gave me a great deal of confidence. The cross is powerful, it is the symbol God chose to save the world through. Carrying the cross made me realize or maybe just remember how powerful it is, and as a Christian I am carrying a great weapon to slay the enemy. A demon-cleaver in it's own right. "All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to [Christ], (Matt. 28:18)." It's time to remember we have been saved by the one with the power over everything and that we have been given access to Him. Therefore we should not fear. That is what I learned this week. We have been given access to great power, and through the uncertain times, when we know not what is happening or why, we do know that the one with all authority has saved us. So what should we fear other than God himself?