-Josh Stock

Can you see the sheer look of terror on my face?

-photo taken by Jordan Leete

i wrote this post some months ago and for some reason, took it offline or never put it up. But I reread it and am finding it relevant right now, hearing new things in it so I thought I would repost it up.   

If there is one thing that I have learned in the last few months, it is that everyone is lost in some way. We are all stuck in this world, struggling to attain some sort of peace, of happiness. And while we all express this struggle in different ways, when you look at it deeper, it’s exactly the same. It’s easy to get frustrated with how others may hurt you, with how others may live their life and the choices they make. But we all have to make do with what we have and try to work through the muck. What makes your way of dealing with life different or better than anyone else’s?

I can speak for no one but myself in what we do with the life we have been given. Some days, I have no idea where I am going. The path seems untraveled and unclear. All I can do is remain honest before God and strive to live in such a way that I can look at him without fear. When people ask me about my life, all I can say is that I live in such a way that I can sleep at night. It seems a bit sad that it has been reduced to that. But there is also a simplicity about it. And lots of room for grace.

And when you are open and listen carefully, you will begin to hear what God hears: the honest cry of each and every person trying to make their way in this uncertain world. It comes in different voices, different actions. But it is there, loud and clear for anyone who wishes to listen. It’s so easy as Christians to get caught up in “the trappings” of religion, of morality even, that we miss these honest voices. We are turned off by the words or the actions that we don’t even see what’s the driving force behind it. We don’t see the lostness, the fear, the questions. This is a terrible tragedy. For to miss this, we miss their hearts, we miss their reality. And we can never even begin to answer the question.

You all need to check out this website if for no other reason than this line alone.

“In a cave chalk full of hippos, there was this ninja.”