Frantic for Jesus

I wrote this so long ago, but for some reason it still hits my heart every time

I had a dream last night. It was about a little girl. She was frantic.

I was staying in a house on the coast. There were not neighbors around that had any interest in us, as far as I could tell. The people sharing the house with me were a mixture of people I had seen from yesterday, as the brain often casts characters based on its recent store. I had been mildly interested in a volleyball match when I saw the players walk away, and the ball slowly roll into a canal that eventually led to an outlet to the wide sea. Distraught for reasons I didn't understand, I grabbed a net with a pole too short to be of any use and stood on the dock, hoping some eddy would bring the ball I had suddenly become fixated with back around within the 3 foot reach that I was capable of.

I was vigilant, you have to give me that. As I clutched my instrument that held my hope, the light began to fade to a shadowy dusk and, as time lengthened, I eventually came to see another object in the now adumbral canal. It was a boat. A small boat carrying a small body, the latter of which was obviously straining and fatigued. The muscles shook, the head drooped, and still the tiny arms formed a cadence as if part of a ritual. Forward. Stroke. Push. Stroke. Go. Forward. Onward. My first thought when I saw this small boat was "Salvation! I can get my ball back". As the sturdy little boat drew towards the shore, the shadow of a person began to take form. It was a small girl, no more than eleven. Her round brown eyes spoke weariness beyond her years, her frame shivered in the breeze the night brought and her small craft took on the quivering of her spent muscles. The boat approched the dock where I stood dumbly and her small hand poked out of the darkness towards me. I grabbed it, lifted her out, and began tying her dilapidated boat to a deteriorating post as she shakily stood next to me, watching silently.

As soon as I was done, she grabbed me with surprisingly more strength than I had first thought this strange, weary person capable. "You know Jesus?" she asked in broken English, her strange accent unrecognizable and an oddly intense light burning in her eyes. Her brown curls that any comb would fear to meet stuck out everywhere. Short and strongly built, she leaned towards me as if I held some flame that gave her warmth she sought. Her entire being seemed to hang on my response. She seemed to me the biggest oddity I had ever met as I stood dumbfounded, trying to collect my thoughts and myself. Then I remembered my purpose. "First go get my ball, then we can talk more about Jesus.". Priorities first, I reasoned. Quite obviously Jesus is worth talking about, but He will still be there after we get my ball, the ball that could be swept to sea at any moment. She jerked the fabric of my shorts with even more insistence, "No, now. You know Jesus?". Apparently she did not understand. I tried, yet again, to explain to her. "Yes. I know Him. But first you must go get that ball right across the canal. It's not very far. And once you do, I will take you somewhere to talk about Jesus.". I did not understand the frantic insistence, and it was beginning to get annoying. This person of lesser intelligence surely did not understand that Jesus was always there. He could wait. He most certainly wasn't going anywhere and in the meantime, I actually had a pressing concern. Yet again, she grabbed onto me, this time as if she was going to fall and I was her only support. "I paddle many days. Where I came from, no one know Him. They hate that I know Him. But I love Him. I came to see Him. Now please," she released me and stared once again with that passion in her eyes ," Jesus.".

Her appeal was absurd to me; her fervency inane. I had known people like this. They lived as if every next breath was not certain and they had to immediately and constantly find Jesus, like a starving man begged for sustenance. They did not understand that the urgency was not necessary, the frantic demeanor, not all-important. He was there. He always had been, always would be. Like a comfortable pillow, you could fall back on Him when you really needed rest and He'd faithfully catch you, the relationship supremely comfortable and safe. In a slow tone, I enunciated clearly,"Go get the ball. Then we talk. Or I am leaving."

Go get the ball. Then we talk. Or I'm leaving. Let what I want done be accomplished. Stop distracting me. It's good to want to spend time with your Creator but He can wait a few hours. He has all day. He can wait a few days, He has all week. He can sit behind our shoulder, praying is just going to distract us from what we need to get done, and He understands that. He'll take us back. It is not that important to tell Him what He already knows. There's no need to be frantic as we acted when we were first saved. That was ignorance of how life truly is. Life is a marathon, you don't have to keep such a frenetic pace for God. Do you really expect to tangibly see Him work? That was our old way of thinking, fueled by a dreamer mentality and the excitement of being newly His. Understand that that is not how life is. Know that this new way of living, this prosaic, sterile and unruffled existence, this is reality. Expecting miracles and God sightings and tangible assistance, that is not realistic and will only serve to let down your idea of who God is. After all, do you really expect Him to do all that? Why put expectations on God that when He does not meet, will break you? Better to anticipate the antiseptic, the safe, better to simply live your life and keep God where He is known to be. Don't expect much, stay within your means, and stop acting as if God is your only lifeline, it is quite obvious we can exist apart from that destitue attitude. And really, stop being so frantic for Jesus and put your energy into something worthwhile, like helping me chase my ball.

I am ashamed to say this is my cynicism. This is the box I live in. These are the confines I hold the One who redeemed me to. These are the chains I wrap around myself and then so stubbornly strain against.

These are the gently sloping roads that lead to a different kind of hell, one where God is close; but not involved, willing; but not allowed, able; but not asked. This is the reality I settle for, the one that sows inadequate fruit in my life at which I become bitterly angry at God for.

God, please. Please. Save me from myself. I don't want to live safe. I want to be frantic for Jesus.