Trust and Tiredness

Last night, we stayed up working on our robot until midnight.

This morning, we stayed up working on our robot until 8:30 am, when it shipped.

We worked on the robot for a long time. I am tired.

Still, I am not too tired to blog. Actually, my brain is so full of thoughts that they're coming out in droves upon what I wanted to call a canvas, but which is actually just a bunch of pixels displaying the graphical representation of code. Dagnabbit, just when I was feeling poetic...

So, one of my excuses for not blogging (something I really want to do pretty much all the time) is that I had no idea how to fit in the end to the saga of the job at the gas station. I still don't know how, so I'm just going to spell it out. I got the job, but I turned it down. Getting the job was an answer to prayer, but God's answers are always so much elaborate than the ones we want. I asked for a job, and he gave me a dilemma that required trust in him and faith in action, not to mention standing my ground for once in my life.

To put a long story into 424 words, the manager showed me the ropes one day, and I did not like the ropes. It would have been a challenging job, but that was not what turned me off. I actually think it would have been a growing experience for me, if it had not been for what I was asked to do. The guy was really cool, but one of the first things he said to me was, "Don't worry, man, I won't tell your parents about anything you do here. You're your own man now, right? Striking out on your own!" Then he laughed. I laughed nervously with him.

He then proceeded to show me specific things I would be selling, like cigarettes (barely legal for me), beer (still not sure about that one), and magazines designed to provide temptation for guys my age (products I am not about to provide). As the son who has watched his father's life be made miserable in part by a nicotine addiction, I was dead set against feeding the addictions of others. Beer? I mean, they're going to get it no matter what, right? Yeah. No. It's not going to be through me. The magazines kind of nailed the lid into the coffin for me.

I was still torn, though. It was a life-altering decision. Pretty much all decisions are, but this was tangibly so. I needed a job desperately, and it looked like God had provided one. On the other hand, this was not a job in which I would be happy, and I was not even sure I could do it for a year. It took a lot of prayer, but I knew the entire time what my answer would be. I couldn't do it. Saying no is always difficult for me, but it become more difficult when the guy tried his darndest to get me to change my mind. I was determined, fortunately, and for once I didn't let someone butter me up and push me around. I said no, and I felt good about it, sort of.

That gas station closed a few days after I said no. I'm unsure as to whether it was because I didn't take the job that they had to close, or whether I would have been out of a job a few days after I got hired. The guy did seem desperate, even though he said to me in his game show host voice, "I'm never desperate." I almost believed him until that last phone call.

So that is the answer to your question. I got the job, right? No. But I learned a lot and made some difficult decisions I had never before made. I had been faced with them before, but had never made the right choice when it meant giving up something for which I had thought I was destined.

Anyway. I tend to live my life with my hair in some crazy, ridiculous do. I do it to relieve stress, if you want to know. Yes, sometimes because I want to be cool (this is always a disappointment; it never works), but often to relieve stress. This morning I needed to relieve some, so I gelled my hair all to one side. And not flat against my head. Oh, no. Ever seen the movie The Country Bears? You know that part with the two cops who go through the car wash? I love that part. My hair looked like the white cop's. Except to the right, not straight back.

Sometimes, when someone tells me something that shocks me and changes my entire outlook on the day, I am tempted to let my hair down, as it were. I don't feel like the same crazy, goofy person. But it's just a feeling, isn't it? I am still the same crazy, goofy person no matter what someone tells me (unless they tell my that I'm not the same crazy, goofy, person, and they're right, which rarely happens). Sure, there's much more to me than the crazy, goofy parts, but they still remain. A sudden shift in circumstance doesn't change who I am.

I'm learning not to let circumstances change me. It has a lot to do with trusting God, one of the most difficult things for me to do. I've never before been able to say this, but I am starting to do that. Today, I had to make one of my most difficult trust decisions. Someone told me something that completely changed my view of certain things, and I really want to pursue that something with all of my heart. My heart's point of view changes a lot, though. It isn't very dependable. I'm learning that God's point of view is 100% dependable.

I'm learning not to trust my emotions. They can be very persuasive, but they are almost always fleeting.

I now have a Boston song playing in my head. It's more than a feeling!!

But is it more than a feeling? I think it's still too early to tell, some say, it really ain't no myth at all.

Now, that was Jack Johnson. Is my playlist showing?

But when you discover for a fact that someone else has the same feeling, does that lend any credence to it? Maybe, I guess. But that doesn't change the fact that God knows and I don't. It makes complete sense to trust him with my future and follow his plan. I'm actually starting to just accept that and obey him. Sometimes. This was one of those times, and it was certainly emotional. I just don't want to give up my desires. Why? Because I desire them so much!

I'm so glad that God is patient. It took me eighteen years to obey his will once or twice. Now I just have to continue. I'm finding out that the more I trust God, the more I love him for his perfect planning and love for me that is so evident in what he asks me to do. You have no idea how long I've waited to love him. I'm seeing just a glimpse of what Jesus meant when he said that we love God by obeying his commands. It never made sense to me because I had never tried it.

Can I tell you right now that it works?

So, today I gave up control to God. Boy, was that tough. I'm still not in total agreement. I'm still just sitting here hoping that he does what I want him to do. In other words, I still have the wrong attitude. Have I mentioned how much I want to go with what both myself and the second party feel? It's so hard. Life is hard. God is good. I'm putting my faith in the latter, and I'm doing it with my hair held high.

What do you feel is your biggest area of strength?

I'm filling out a job application right now and that's the question I have to answer in roughly two lines of text. Oh, please. I'm already skipping questions and planning to go back to them later. You have to ask this question!

Am I strong in any area? I'm funny, sometimes, with the right people if I'm on a roll. I don't think that's what they're looking for, and it would be pretty sad if that was my biggest strength. But I've got to put something down. I don't see the point of asking such a roundabout question. They don't actually want to know what my biggest strength is, they just want to gauge my response. But if I answer honestly and say my biggest strength is honesty, what do they do with that? In order to be effective, the question really requires some dishonesty. But in that way it's completely self-defeating.

I think I may be reading too much into this question. I tend to do that with applications. My answers are often overly complex and tell little about me except that I am eager to please and read too much into their questions. But how can I possibly answer the question and acheive a good result. In all likelyhood, the answer to the question won't hardly factor into their decision at all. But if I go by that logic and give a lousy answer, it will end up affecting their decision.

To be honest, a bunch of qualities instantly spring to mind. But they are instantly shot down because they all refer to how I am around other people. Let's face it, I'm usually a pretty nice guy outside my home. But around the house I can be a monster and frequently am. I yell and sometimes scream at my brothers, talk back to my mom, ignore my dad and get mad over the stupidest things. When someone is annoying me and other people whom I want to impress are watching, I am patient to the nth degree and then some. I have zero patience, however, when no one is around to watch me blow up. I'm caring and compassionate towards my family, my friends, and I have a vague sense of compassion for the world, but I care about myself a quintillion times more.

Let's face it. I'm a self-centered, self-serving, aggressively hateful broken-down machine. But you knew that already, and so did I. I listen to Steriogram. I'm a mess! So we've established that, but let's be real. The people who came up with this application form already knew that too. Why in the heck did they write the question, then? Just to make me further aware of my inadequacy and be spurred to write this?

No, of course not. They put the question in because they were writing a job application form and everyone puts that question in their job application forms. I guess the most honest answer I can give is that I'm compassionate and enjoy helping people. That'll sell me for a teaching position. I just hate applications in general.

Here are some lyrics about getting older. This is how I've been feeling all year and especially this week. Reading these words makes me want to stay up all night and drive down to the oval to feed cripples. Why did I waste so much of my life? Tomorrow I'm going to do something worthwhile, I promise. You hold me to that, okay?

We can't go to sleep

'Cause we'll wake up older,

We can't let these nights

Steal away half our lives.

-Sanctus Real, "Half Our Lives."