RustyView.com

Have you ever just found yourself in a place and asked yourself, “How did I get here?” Have you ever felt like your just cruising through life on auto pilot? I think it’s like sleep walking.

We were talking about sleep walking in a General Psychology class that I’m taking and it’s really an interesting condition. It has been recorded that people have eaten, bathed, gotten dressed, and even driven cars while technically asleep. Studies have shown though that when people sleepwalk they tend to do things that they do on a regular basis, something that is familiar to them. They have their eyes open, but they are not aware of the things that they are doing. So they are as we say, just going through the motions.

How many of us do this in our everyday lives. I can even describe a very long time in my life in which this was the case… High School. I woke up went to school only looking forward to the end of the day to go home and sleep to start the process over again. My life was a weekly routine. And there were a couple of times whenever I came to my senses just for moment to realize I had no clue how I had gotten to where I was or how I became who I was. And in that time it was just easier to fall back in to the routine than to start something new and step outside of the box. It was terrible, and I look back now with fistfuls of regret.

However I have taken the experience and used it. I’m not saying that I never live in routine. Even to this day I often find myself just going through the motions, sleepwalking both spiritually and emotionally. I like to consider myself a writer and think that I have a way with words. This being so, I find that it is very easy for me to say what people want to hear. And while this is good in the sense that I can placate and pacify those around me, it can quickly lead to isolation. If I tell people what they want to hear by saying that I’m doing just fine when really I’m hurting, I just make the pain worse.

I think that a lot of people are too comfortable for their own good. As people, whenever we get comfortable, we get bored, but for some reason unknown to me, it’s all that we want in life. It’s as if we can be financially secure and socially accepted then all of the other problems of the world will just fade away. Again I’m not trying to criticize people that are well-off or popular. The idea, which I think is generally understood, is that those things alone will not satisfy. There’s always a craving and a desire for something more. The reason for this comes from the fact that we were meant for more.

I don’t understand why people do things that they aren’t passionate about. It’s seems that the cultural rule is to choose a career that will pay well over one that you will actually enjoy. But humor me for just a moment. If when God created us He gave each one of us specific passions for the sole purpose of glorifying Him, imagine how awesome the world would be if we embraced those God-given gifts.

It’s just really hard for me because I see so many people around me in my everyday life full of potential that ignore their passions. So many people that are just sleepwalking through life. But God calls us to wake up. God calls us to live with His passion in everything that we do. I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and they commented on how the title of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion is so appropriate. Jesus is God’s passion for us in human form. Jesus is God’s passionate love that came down and lived with us. And it’s in that passion that we are supposed to live. It’s in that fully-charged, heart-warming, life-changing passion that we should live. And it’s whenever we begin to live outside of the passion and in the routine that we lose ourselves. We lose everything that makes us who we are.

My hope is that this will cause you to wake up for just a moment and take a look at your life. Are you living in the routine or are you living in the passion that you have been created for? Are you too comfortable, longing for something more? Are you sleepwalking? I know that it’s something that I struggle with a lot and my prayer is that we would be able to get through it together. It’s what we’re called to do and that’s what the church really is.

Just Sayins All…

Rusty