To return to something so familiar-- halls you've walked a thousand times, rooms that bring back memories past, and corners you've cried in-- is to return to reality. Reality exists not in the vacation you've enjoyed (where others' expectations of your productivity fall away), no, but in the place where our Father asks you to Kingdom work.
I remember showing up on Rosedale campus last fall. Fresh from two weeks in the Canadian bush, I was ready to serve where I could. Everything was fresh. Everything was new. Everything was potential. Then my heart got hurt. Then I failed God once or twice. Then the "hardship" and "times of trouble" I knew would come at some point indentified themselves as specific issues and not vague terms like "trials" that are so easy to shout battlecries against in the beginning (2 Timothy 2:3). The pure potential melted away as the reality of relationships and temptations burned depressing associations of the campus into my my mind like an acid following failure.
A sense of "finished" didn't come with finals until the sleep on the way home. God taught me and God grew me over that semester. He showed me the Kingdom and His peace (Romans 8:6). I returned to my home in Maryland intending on learning how to tranfer these lessons to another context. After wiping sleep from my eyes the next morning, I recognized the familiar surroundings in which I spent eighteen years of my life. Unfortunately I recognized more than that. The acid had been here too. It had left its mark in every room. It was so much worse than Rosedale. There was the room I picked on my brother. I wasted days of my life procrastinating from schoolwork in that desk. I stood there and yelled at mom. Somewhere behind this paint I scribbled all over this wall. And, yes, I saw all those scandals in heaven thought, said, and done in secret (Luke 12:2-3) somewhere in this house here. For days, I walked through the labryinth of mundane memories, thinking they could never change their inappeal and lack of potential for anything more. Then God taught me love.
He taught me a love empowered by more than my desire for change, more than my passion for revival, and definitly more than my tolerance for this weary world (1 Thessalonians 3:12). He turned my focus off of this weary world and to His kingdom, which, apparently, is in His created people (Luke 17:20-21). My parents could use some more respect from me, my sisters would appreciate some appreciation, my little brother could be at least tolerated, and that kid at church who has said, "Hi, Ryan," every Sunday morning for the past three years would enjoy a less-weary, more enthusiastic smile with that "Hey, Derrick," back. Those little things aren't what God's word specifies exactly, but He is about loving on people and if that's what it takes from me today, so be it (Galatians 5:6).
Now I won't be expecting change like Miracle-Gro again or movements to start with oversize scissors and red tape, (even if that happened, we could only blame Him) and I don't yet know how to walk the path of righteousness and stay kneeling or how to be a living sacrifice and not climb off the altar, but if the Glorious Judge (John 8:50) orders a death penalty on me and then steps down to pay it Himself, I just might be capable of peering through acid-saturated walls to see the hurting person just down the hall in need of a little love today.
God's growing me and not by my effort. But there were things that accompanied His taking control. I encourage you to do the same. Give up time spent on "devotions," begin spending time with God. Stop "not-sinning," start following His will. End being a Christian for the reward of heaven, and follow Christ for the fulfillment of His Kingdom. It's not about us.
But you remain the same, and your years will never end.
