Monday, December 1, 2008

My Conversation with God


I admit that I am no where near being the perfect Christian, I am a host of flaws, a host of imperfections. Sometimes I doubt His existence, sometimes I doubt His seriousness. Some call that a lack of faith, I simply call it re-evaluating my beliefs. Am I simply praying to emptiness? Or are my prayers being hurriedly written down by an Angel on a paper airplane and flown to the Department of Jesus Christ only to be held up by a traffic full of paper airplanes? Yes I have a very active imagination lol.

Recently terrorists killed hundreds of innocent people in India, at least one person was trampled (possibly murdered) at a Walmart on "Black Friday", and America is still at war killing and being killed all the while we are growing upset that our "Christmas" is not going to be the same because our economy is officially in a recession. Times like these invoke me to ask questions about the existence or the effectiveness of God. WHAT IS GOING ON UP THERE? Is God asleep? Did he give up on us? Or am I asking ridiculous questions because for all these years I have simply contributed towards perpetuating a fairytale or a systematic governing tool that has so obviously failed.

I typically come out of these stages believing in God more strongly than ever before. Something happens that to me is a sign from Him, or it could be my active imagination but I take it as a sign anyways. This time was no different. I spent my Thanksgiving secretly angry at the Lord. There is so much pain right now and what is He doing as our Father to relieve this pain, what is He doing to transform us into better humans, into better civilizations? So yes I was frustrated with the Lord, which led to a conversation I should never forget.

In my head I silently ask the Lord, "What are you doing?" I would love to say that suddenly my room was filled with an almost unbearable amount of light and a thundering voice trembled the walls shaking the very foundation of the Howard West Towers informing me of the intricate and complicated plans the Lord have for mankind. However, unfortunately that didn't happen. Or maybe that's a good thing because I probably would have had a heart-attack. But the question, "what are you doing" kept ringing in my head, kept being repeated over and over again. Now y'all know me, I be up to a lot lol, I don't necessarily want the Lord to be examining what all I have been up to...so I kept pointing the question back at the Lord and this time it was more of a demand. "What are you doing!" I felt the passion behind it, I felt my emotions behind the question, I really needed to know, I really wanted an explanation for the reasoning behind all these atrocities, I wanted to know what is He doing that causes thousands of families to go through a terrible mourning process of their loved ones that were killed by evil evil human beings or freedom fighters (perspective is key).

This question still remained stubborn in my head, my conversations cut short because this question is still ringing away, eating away at all of my energy. It was as if my question was my answer. "What are you doing Michael C. Webb Jr.?"

Now I haven't read the Bible in awhile, it scares me ya know. But the stories I was taught back when I was young begun to slowly present themselves, revealing themselves, unraveling as if they were hibernating in a cold stiff closet filled with lost memories. I start seeing what God mean by "What are you doing Michael C. Webb Jr." because in these stories, some terrible and some encouraging God performs many if not most of his miraculous works through humans.

That anger at the Lord, that frustration recently has evaporated, creating a moisture around me that is thick with shame, thick with self-contempt, thick with disgust. What have I become that I failed to see that the evil, the cruelty that is surrounding me is here because I have yet to step up and utilize my God given strength and powers to do anything about it. This has to change, this has to change...no more shall I point the finger at the Lord because I am essentially pointing at a mirror. Now I must ask a frightening and terrifying question: What are you doing?

2 comments:

Diana said...

Damn...that's kind of a chilling post, but in a good way.

You're right about what's been going on with us Americans, we're all so upset that we can't spend hundreds of dollars "celebrating" Christmas, we fail to see what's been going on in the rest of the world. God, that Wal-Mart story still makes me sick.

MCWJR. said...

I'm starting to no longer want to celebrate christmas. It's weird....considering it's suppose to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus, ya know kind of important lol... but that's a topic for another post :) maybe on Christmas Day