Indifferent, Cynical and Entitled

We got here on the shoulders of gigantic predecessors, people who stood up to the norm.  They dared attempt to change the world they lived in.  Went with their best ideas and, SURPRISE!  They changed it.  And here we are, basking in the glory of their sweat stains.  Everything we have, we worked relatively little for.  I drove a car at 16, my dad's car.  The car he bought after he had worked for years.  He was first born of 8 children.  He was raised in a rural area, he worked the farm, herded cattle until he could start first grade.  His parents changed his birth date on his records so he could get a scholarship, went to school and eventually a teacher's college.  Married a girl he met in high school, both teachers and here comes me.  He asked me to work hard, surpass him.  As he surpassed his father who did not finish grade school.

The biggest Entitlement is the current state of the Union, a union I think I know little about.  The foundation of this country sounds great.  I will learn more of it, but, the little I know of the Founding Fathers, I went to Thomas Jefferson's house!  A man designed and built a house, 40 years it took him!  I know very few people my age who can focus on something for 10 years - we make vows we break constantly, we have dreams we abandon because it takes longer than microwave oatmeal.  I blame the microwaves.  We have ever decreasing curiosity, capacity for knowledge, capacity for pain, we have no endurance.  They say children are the future, I am terrified for the future.  After driving at 16, my (unborn) child will want his own car at that age.       It is the way it goes.  The children of this Union do not expect to work to sustain their Fathers' dreams, we want it to continue the way it has always been.  Clinton represents for my generation, the Union's high (though some would cite Kennedy and the Apollo project).  He did his thing and left it to us, we pick it up and go on. Not to spend it all, waste it and think it will just keep coming, WELLS RUN DRY, RESOURCES HAVE CAPACITY!  Our Fathers were so few it looked infinite, now that there are enough of us, we see the bottom of the barrel.  We touch it once in a while and it freaks us out.  We looked the decline and saw nothing, Entitled.

Things are bad and get worse, the few who try to change things (blasted microwaves!) do not see the change they hoped for.  It takes too long!  They give up, give in or (the fortunate) die trying.  So much of what I say with my voice is cynicism and sarcasm.  So do the rest of 'us.'  All we see is the shrinking social security checks in our distant future, the dwindling oil fields screaming, "No more road trips jerks!"  Oh the ozone layer (what's left of it) and so on and so on.  Those that work hard and pursue what once were virtues keep working hard trying to find the ends that ought to meet.  Those that play and strive for vice are on top.  They do not work anymore.
Cynical.

And so we are left determined nothing matters.  It will not change, it is rolling downhill and we will not catch the cart.  So, "Whatever.  I guess, like, yeah.  Whatever."
Indifferent.

Something has got to give,

"In times of hardship we have said something has to give, something has to move.  I find it a deux ex machina response to the unstoppable force, immovable object dilemma.  Something has got give way, move back or else the system will remain in equilibrium while both bodies deteriorate, which is a very feasible reaction.  I do not relish the idea in life however, a life in static equilibrium is an oxymoron, death is energetic equilibrium with the surroundings, any other form of static equilibrium in life scares me and is akin to some level of death.  

What I have, up to now not realised, is how often I am the thing to budge.  Many times I am looking externally for the mostly immovable object resisting my unstoppable push.  If finances, what thing can do without and still live at 'a standard I am used to'?  If time, what activities?  I am the director.  I push my amazing God-given strength around, rarely am I the thing to move, neither are my ideas nor beliefs.  

I prayed today that the Lord move me, and that I would remain conscious of this fact.  Sometimes me and my ideas are the mountain in the way of my progress, in the way of the Lord's plan.  And hardship should cause us to examine all things and see this state.  So here I am, I have this idea of God's goodness, and how He does/does not, should/should not provide for or help people.  Like Job's friends, some of those ideas need to be adjusted.  Aslan said nothing [of the Lord's hand] happens the same way twice.  I believe that.  So if this holds, then our ideas of God's interventions are old as soon as we see Him act right?  Hence our need to move on.  Scientists assume the world is orderly, meaning repeating an experiment in exact settings should yield the same result (or really close), so we found acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per square second, speed of light is 299792458 meters per second, and today I weigh 132 pounds.  I do not think this same assumption is true of the Lord.  He is not entirely random, neither is He entirely ordered either.  He is (again) a conundrum.

The moral of my story is this: I get in the way of God's work by approaching my academics, sometimes finances and definitely relationships in the 'knowledge' that I can do it.  I am living with God playing my commander-on-the-hill, while I wage war in the field; (I run to Him when I am driven back, and send Him reports when I am doing well, "See I told you I could!".)  The Psalmist confesses it is not his own bow or strength that won a battle but the Lord.   The armies of the Hebrews coming out of Egypt lost their first fight, Moses had told them if go, the Lord does not go with you.  After Elisha prayed for him, his servant saw the armies of the Lord surrounding them ready to do battle.  Remember conundrum, not wholly ordered; it seems HE FIGHTS WITH US AND FOR US.  He is not far off directing.  He is Emmanuel.  GOD WITH ME, and you and all of us.  I have a time wrapping my head around God with ME, and that has got to go."

He is not like my parents when I was in boarding school, they cared for me from over there (not saying that is a bad thing).  Rather, it is as if He sent me to school but went with me, like Timmy Turner in Fairly OddParents.  I believe in Emmanuel and the Cross.  Emmanuel in the rest of my life is still suffering from stunted growth.  I have to consciously remember He is for me here, now and every time.  I am never on my own.

Doing battle

He is called the Lord of Hosts.  I like that.  The Lion, that CS Lewis' Pevensies reminded us again and again is not a tame Lion.  I like that too.  I am no warrior.  There is little of one in me.  Yet I am called to do battle daily. Beating flesh and thought into submission, resisting the enemy's wiles and fighting the good fight.  I envy the (pretend) men who long for battle and when they have one revel in it.
I do not think I can take anything from my enemy.  I say today, however that I will give him nothing.  A fictional warrior said, "Give them nothing" and another, "Show no mercy, for you will receive none."  I will give him nothing, and to my Lord everything.
That is my prayer.

Subtle enslavement

"unlike the cruel Leonidas who asks you to stand, I only ask that you kneel" Xerxes in 300