Storms, storms, & being still.

I've been thinking about my fight-or-flight tendency.

Something about me has been really missing thunderstorms. One of my favorite things to do--ever--is run outside in the middle of a really fierce, windy, relentless thunderstorm. I love the wildness of it all. It's untamed and brutal and all it's own. Thunderstorms don't care about you; they rush on in a fit of self-expression. My thunderstorm crush spills out into my everyday life too. I love the struggle. I like solving problems and manning up in the face of challenges. I feel alive when there's a battle to be won, a person to be won over, a problem to be fixed, brokenness to address. But in my prayer life I've noticed how fiercely God's teaching me how to be, not just to do. There's a time and place for fighting, but it's not at the foot of the Cross. God's teaching my heart peace. And I'm learning. Not gracefully, of course. I never learn gracefully. Peace isn't settling in slowly; it's ripping apart huge parts of my life and attitude and rebuilding it into something I've never seen before, at least not up close. I think I've seen this joy in other people's life--this joy dependent on Christ alone and not my own particular brand of happiness--but have never seen it in my own heart. It's there. Tiny, but growing. God's teaching me how to stay, and to fight the battles he gives me without feeling the need to go out and look for new ones, and also a little something about which way I'm running.

Here it is: I want to run toward things, not away from things. I don't want to run from commitment. I don't want to run from the easy path. I don't want to run from security. I don't want to run from consistency. I don't want to run from stability. I tend to, I think. And, yes, God will continue to call me away from those things. But if He's not, it's not my place to reject it. It's not my decision to run away from everything that looks remotely like it could last.

Even at my most unsure, I want to always be running toward the arms of Christ. Toward grace. I want to run into a deeper understanding of the Gospel.