close/to/me

Mood: Compassionate
Music: —
Interesting thought: all of them.

I guess this is what growing up means right? Not the bitterness part, but changing either for the better or worse. I guess lately God has been changing my heart a lot. I used to think I had a lot of faith. I guess I did too. But I also thought that my faith couldn’t get any bigger than it already was. I was really wrong. I think that for a lot of people the idea of serving God is a lot of rules and a lot of technicalities. It’s not that way for me. I’ve been following God for like.. 4 years now. But ‘following’ God and doing the rules and the things isn’t what it’s about. I’m finally feeling that. The reason I say ‘feeling’ is that I’ve known that for a while. It’s part of the Christian lingo. A ‘relationship’ not a ‘religion’. I knew that.. but I never really felt it. For a while I was really bitter towards people, and myself and even God. I knew, and others knew, that I was bitter towards other people. But being bitter towards myself was something only I saw, and being bitter towards God was something that God showed me. So once I started realizing just how bitter I was towards pretty much everyone, I started praying that God would let me have the kind of compassion that he has. I learned also that when you pray something like that, then you’d better be prepared to have God touch your life. You see, I think the reason that it’s so easy for people to sin so much is that a lot of times people see it as a lot of rules. But that’s not it at all. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe I should start at the beginning.

Pastor Zach gave a message a couple of months back about how big God was. How incredibly massively huge God was. God is so big that more than our whole entire universe could easily fit on his pinky fingernail. For some reason, that really really got to me. Not in a good way either. Finally all the bitterness that I’d been harboring was right there and I had to deal with it. I was angry at God because I didn’t I understand why we mattered. It was a Wednesday night and I was sitting in the front row. I refused to stand for the singing, or pray or anything like that. The service ended and Rich was driving me home. He knew that the message had touched me in some way and he pulled over at my command because I had some questions. I felt naive and stupid as I asked simple questions that I knew the correct answers to, but didn’t believe. "If God is so big, then why does it matter if we worship him? What does he care? If we’re so small and tiny and unimportant, then what does it matter? What does He care if one of us doesn’t pray to him? He has the angels, and that’s all they do is worship and pray to him, so why is it so important? I don’t understand." And I didn’t understand. It was as though everything I believed in suddenly seemed foreign. God seemed indescribably far away and impersonal. Rich tried to answer all my questions, and he did a pretty good job considering how hostile and rude and bitter I was being about the whole thing. We must have talked for half an hour. I just kept repeating the same questions over and over again, "If God is so big, then why does it matter if one of us doesn’t follow him?" Rich answered Biblically and gave the correct answers, but it didn’t satisfy me and I just asked over and over again- "If God is so big, and there are so many people anyway, then why does it matter if one of us doesn’t follow him?" It’s amazing how the most in depth ‘religious’ answers can do absolutely nothing at times. Finally Rich looked me in the eye and said "Because He loves you Tristan." And quite honestly, that was all it took. I sat back in my seat and thought about it. I KNEW that God loved us, but I never had really ‘felt’ it. I don’t know how to describe it except that I felt the love of God. Not that I felt love. But I felt the love God felt. I don’t even know if that makes any sense. I cried so hard. Rich held me and we sat in his car at a park while I cried. I couldn’t speak and Rich kept asking what I was trying to say because I was trying to tell him why I was crying. He got me a piece of paper that he still has today and through tears I scribbled, "If God loves everyone and Jesus died for everyone then some people are going to hell. And that’s sad." And I cried. I couldn’t stand to see houses, or buildings or anything because I just cried harder knowing that God loved the people who lived in them. He drove me home and I cried and prayed late into the night.

In the days following I continued to pray that God use me and that I feel His compassion. I still knew how He felt and prayed during school for classmates next to me. But nothing really ‘big’ happened again until just recently. I was up late reading my bible and praying and God just kind of gave me a realization. God spent so much time on every single person. He knows everything about them. He knows exactly how many blonde hairs I have on my head, and he knows every birthmark on your body. He made you special. And aside from that, God wants to be there for you and be the bestfriend you could ever have. It’s like he makes you and then you are born and he says "I love you, come and look at everything I have for you. I designed you with a purpose and you don’t even know all the talents and things you can do." We’re made in God’s image and God has so many facets that we never know about and I believe that we have that too, to a limited degree. God made special things about us that He knows we have but we don’t even know yet. He wants to be in our lives and guide them and be our bestfriend. I believe that God is already our bestfriend, and even when we aren’t saved considers us that. He’s like "bestfriend, come here and look at the life I have for you and all the ways I want to bless you and use you," "bestfriend I have so many things I want to tell you and teach you and that I can share with you". And this is an extremely happy thing. But in the exact same moment, I knew it wasn’t. This realization that God gave me wasn’t from our perspective. You see, so many people see "God loves me, and wants to be my bestfriend" but that’s not how God sees it. God says "I love you and you are my bestfriend." God created us specially and we were CREATED to be His bestfriend. God sees "I love you and you are my bestfriend, but you don’t know I care for you." Because He made the people that are following Him, but also the people that aren’t. And THAT is what hits me. Why is it that my God that made the whole entire world and is bigger than everything and loves people, has to hurt? That’s not fair to God. Not only are we God’s bestfriend, but His sons and daughters. People mourn for years because they lose a family member. But EVERYDAY one of God’s bestfriends goes to hell. EVERYDAY His sons & daughters say "I don’t NEED you." Every single day the creatures that God made perfectly and loved and wanted to be with die. God loves them. He loves them more than we get. More than we could ever get and they don’t want him, they don’t need him, they don’t know him. There are many facets of God and I know that God cries for them. He made t

hem special and loves them and puts everything into them… And he is hurt by them every single second of the day. For eternity. Why did God choose that? That is not fair to God. It’s not fair at all. But He loves us. And when I get to heaven the one thing I want to ask God is why love has to hurt. I want to know what God says.

So as God gave me this thought, I cried and cried and cried. It’s like spending time making something perfect and something that you love and want to raise and that you gave everything for and it not wanting anything to do with you. That’s how it is for God. He loves us, and He made us and He gave His son for us and a lot of people want nothing to do with him. And that is sad.

God touched my life, and still is. And somewhere since then he gave me a vision. Of teenagers. And He is working in my life and my community and chances are that if I know you read this diary then I am praying that God will be working in your life. So. That’s where I’m at.