High ho, Silver?

"What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign Lord."

I think I may fall in love with King David again. I grew up thinking he was pretty hot stuff. Shoot, he was King, he killed a giant as a prepubescent boy, he got the girl(s), and God recognized him as a man after His own heart. I was obsessed as a kid. And why not? He is the epitome of a boyhood idol.

Unfortunately, modern "manhood" caught up with me. I embraced an attitude of pacifism, adopted the image of a man that was intelligent, passive, enlightened. The idea that no fight was my fight seemed very enticing. Peace is the new black right?

John Eldridge does a pretty good job of eulogizing the man that lives in the heart of every little boy. Today I'm seeing the parallel between Jesus' resurrection and the resurrection of the man who died in the move from innocence. As I draw nearer to Him, I feel this inspiration in me well up, a fight that once was for the neighbor girl, once for the kid who got picked on, once for the good guys. I'm starting to see the disparity between who I have styled myself into and what God has planned for me. There is fear, fear of the real fight to be had, the fight of existence living in this broken world. Justice is alive in me, and I am desperate for the courage to fight for it.

To bring this rant to reality a little better, I have a confession. I am a coward. I am my father. I am every man who settles for a desk job, when the boy in him is still somewhere in a corner sulking for the "Hero" position he lost the courage to take. I am feeling the need for courage today. I am, in more ways than I can express, I more little boy than man. Today I have arrived at the crossroad that I took a wrong turn at so many years ago, and now stare down the right path, full of possibility and danger. I got scared of it. I hid in my apartment cowering under the weight of the call. I overate, I sulked, and then I slept. I succumbed to the lifestyle of fear, the lifestyle of self-medicating blindness. I ask to see God's will for my life and it terrified me.

I don't know how to work without being driven by guilt. I find this amazing emotional freedom in not working, in not caring. I know God wants me to work. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that He is calling me back to work. How? I need my work ethic to meet grace. I today I feel like something hangs in the balance with my deeds. I can't seem to let go of the idea that I need to do anything. I fear that my dad's presence is looming over me saying, "Sure, have your 'grace' or whatever, but you're still a lazy pile of shit in my eyes." And he says it through implication of his own life. He works so hard, and I can even see what an ugly mess it has made of his life and I still can't separate myself from the wrong. I feel the need for approval there is still so strong that I can scarcely deny my father's addictions. He's forcing himself on me by holding out his approval. AGH!

This leads into a whole other room of worms. Reconciliation with him is unimaginable. I'll leave that bit for another day.

Does every American man go through this fiasco just to find his place in the world? Does everybody have to dig through the past and pollute their innocent memories with hardened ugly truth of reality to move forward? Why is life so hard?

My father's voice inside me is mocking me right now for my anguish. But I'm anguished, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm hurting. I'm seeking something better than his life.

He can shove it.