Procrastination & An Existential Crisis

Lord, I’m starting to give up.

I don’t know if it’s the stress of finals or just all the mumbo jumbo in my life, but I’ve come to realize I’m going through this phase of confusion and frustration and anger and bitterness and I don’t want that.  I don’t need it in my life.  But it’s hard to fight it - it's spiritual warfare as I see it, and I feel like I’m being challenged more than ever. 

If there’s one way my faith gets really tested, more than brokenness and pain, it’s through this feeling of being absolutely lost.  Can I just explain to you exactly how I’m feeling at this very moment in time?

I can’t even express in words how I’m feeling - that's the problem. This little brain of mine is a chaotic mess.  Even as I write down everything I’m thinking, nothing makes sense to me, nothing’s coming out the right way.  I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going or why I'm here.  I don't know how to escape this frustration of being so lost in my thoughts and in this world. 

So here I am, down on my knees, begging Him to give me faith, because I know I'm completely and entirely dependent on Him, whether it feels like it or not.  I’m frustrated, ansy, exhausted. I'm giving up on God. 

But David. 

Psalm 31

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress, my eye is wasted from grief, my soul and body also, my strength fails and my bones waste away.

Dude, I totally feel you right now.

For my life is spent with sorrow, my years are in sighing.  I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.

Yes. Exactly.

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, You are my God.” My times are in you hands; into your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. 

David, how are you doing this, man?

Oh, how abundant is your goodness.  Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me.  I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.”  But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.

Good point.

Love the Lord all you his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful. But the proud he pays back in full.  Be strong and take heart, all you who wait for the Lord!

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I imagine David sitting across this table, as I ask him how he did it.  How he was able to praise God when life really, really sucked.  And there he is, smiling at me, sipping his chai tea latte, saying, “Trust me, we’ve all been there.”  

Lord, I am swamped.  I am a complete mess and sometimes I don't feel like I belong anywhere.  I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing and nothing seems to make sense.  I'm frustrated and so done with everything. BUT I WILL PUT MY TRUST IN YOU,God, for you do ALL things well.  May you be glorified in this very moment of complete surrender as I kneel down, broken at your feet, undeserving of your grace, and ready to face the day solely dependent on your power. For when I am weak, YOU are strong.  

In this heap of existential crisis and procrastination and stress and emotional wreckage, yeah.  I’ll be okay.