Not Forgotten

I sat talking to two old friends, one who had become a brother in recent years, the other an unrealized prodigal. Since both conversations were via internet, my close friend and I where both talking to our other mutual friend simultaneously, telling each other of our ensuing conversations with the third.

Conversation ranged from reminiscing to future dreams, with current life in between. The visit commonly returned old memories and hindsight views of people, situations, and feelings. Mostly, it was a 'remember when' followed by laughs and more fun memories. Our conversation also turned to fears, hurts, and ultimatums as a result of those same memories.

In essence, the root of those hurts and fears were created by rules and religion in the absence of relationship. A community failed to recognize the integrity in this one's intimacy and began to push towards good things, however, they were ideals that would not be realized because the communion was not established as thought.

Lies, frustration, confusion, and unhappiness were solidified by rules without relationship. A holy lifestyle was expected, a lifestyle that did not make sense without the satisfaction and joy that comes from becoming more like Him. The first part of the equation will fail itself without the latter portion. Consequently, satisfaction and joy were looked for and found in other avenues, however temporary; not seeing the freedom being given away through each decision, slowly forgetting the identity that was once shallowly deposited.

I began to see the roots of current feelings as I heard of the old experiences and the mindsets that were created. Hope was gone, peace had left, joy was not a lifestyle, but a short weekend experience. Telling my brother of what was being said, we realized we were having similar conversations with our respective third friend. And he said to me "Just remember, there is a really really free person deep inside of there, just waiting to be unleashed".

.preach to the poor.
.bind up the brokenhearted.
.proclaim freedom to the captives.
.release from darkness for the prisoners.

this is who i will be

right

Rights.

I've grown up in America. America has written down, taught me, made me memorize, debated, voted for, voted against, fought for, died for...

Rights. I been cultured to think that the more position I have, the more right I have to demand. Feelings of entitlement and justification expressed by the level of esteem in which I can identify. I am in a position of authority, I have the right to be spoken to with respect. I am 23 years old, I have the right to buy and do subjectively whatever I choose. I have a degree, I have the right to a good job. I have the right to speak intelligibly about subjects. I have the right.

I have one right. I have the right to be humble and serve. I have the right to forget that 'rights' even exist. I have the joy to experience Him when I seek Him, not because I deserve or earn, but because I have been promised this gift. I receive
His presence as honor to my the offering of my life. I has authored to this world not to be His reflection, but to be His display, to shine. Him within me, released around me, changing them.

Entitlement disappointed shares the markings of bitterness and hate, opposing joy and peace. When I can realize what I have been given was not deserved, merited, or warranted, and I give without thought to reception, it is then, I walk in humility, positioned to release power.

.desire.

Internal debate often pulls me from reality. Lost in thoughts who rarely can come into harmony. Reconsidering the blindly accepted philosophies and wisdom regulates the dominant measure of my activity. Peer-pressuring questions long enough, inevitably they will confess their answer.

Unclipping the seatbelt and turning off my car as I parked in the usual corner of the middle of Sunnyside Dr., I walked through the gate into the backyard. The paradox of desire and its evasiveness flooded my mind as if waiting behind the gate for me to arrive. The rest of the night was spent thinking, digging, peeling back the intricacies of why desire for Him burns in select and parades as an old friend, seen only on holidays and special occasions in others.

Loving with distance, loving when it’s safe, loving when it’s controlled; this is love with fear, truly fear without love. One can pour out their lives for another, spend years wasting themselves on someone else; why then is this love, this passion, this service so difficult to translate into loving on the One who loved them first. Henry Nouwen wrote to me this week saying “It is easier to be God than to love God, easier to control than to love, easier to own life than to love life”. Is it an argument for influence and power? I love solely where I can manipulate the outcome and response of another by my expression.

Nevertheless, the need for power and control is based in fear. An insecurity in who I am subjects me to subconscious concern for rejection. Where I cannot position a safety net, a contingency plan, I refuse to become vulnerable past the point I feel others have tread, where I do not feel I am loved to the same extent I am loving. I become ignorant to the fact that He loved me first and continues to do so to an unconscious degree. My ignorance unlocks the door to complacency.

In a moment, often many over a lifetime, a realization occurs and an ultimate confidence is possessed in who He is, His goodness, and the complete satisfaction He offers. When then does pursuit die after the fervor of the moment is lost? Where does desire hide when reality is found? The more I realize the gravity at which I am loved and pursued, the more I covet those moments as existence. I do not love, I do not desire, I do not pursue, I do not…because I am afraid of where I cannot control rejection, believing the lie that denial is a rightful option between Him and me.

If I could grasp even a small portion of the enormity of His love for me, the world, blindness to anything else would come over me. If I could understand how much he loves me, who I am right now, despite my flaws, despite my insecurities, despite the lies I have been convinced of, despite my accomplishments, despite my accolades, I would love Him as I dream to. The only interest I would have would be to get to the lap of my Father and listen to the whispers. Thoughts of finding and remaining in His presence would overcome me, grabbing my focus and not letting go, they are there when I go to sleep and are inescapable when I wake up. If I knew…

I do not love because I have not yet been convinced how I am loved.

And fear wins…

But it won’t…

enemies

It is often found behind the steering wheel of my words; it creeps within my internal, unexpressed emotions; it is the trigger of reactions when disrespected; it creates its own imprisoning walls to protect the unhealthy effect it has on service and humility; it grows, becoming more and more self-enthroned to its own knowledge; hates the weak, ignores needs, and is fed through the realization of its displacement among the ignorant.

What if I forgot you? To live my life not based on you and what you mean, to live without a concern or thought to the damage digging low would bring to you. This picture I am bringing walks carelessly to the mark of what you are, unconcerned for who you are. Humor or anger or kindness or passion is often what you are masked with; knowing humility is your only identity that possesses any true value, where I become unaware to your existence. This picture I am living.

You live as only to what is yours, creations in artificial obligations, fantasies of deserving. You lash out when they fail, you are the cause of significant disappointment, you cripple my boldness. You feed me lies and deafen me to the whispers.

Can I live without you? Living in moments of surrender while you lie lifeless, offering more satisfaction than you could ever extend. A divorce has begun and your unrelenting presence is being replaced with what you are supposed to be without revelation of your reality. I will live without you. I will live in eternal moments, I will see what is forever real, I will display Him.

you are my enemy
you are my reputation

Grind

It has been a month since I found and walked under the red exit letters. Leaving a place of shaping, molding, and becoming and returning to a place determined to be the shaper, be the molder, to know who made me, and be everything I dream to become.

These determinations are often easier said than lived. Embarrassment, fear, rejection; these things are my battleground. How can I change a culture, large or small, if I am afraid to release hope. I'm determined to be a lazy evangelist; I want the presence to follow me, to go ahead of me, to stand beside me. All who stand, walk, or speak to me will experience the presence I live with. Nevertheless, these things cripple my focus, they deafen my ears, and divert my sight away from Him. When will we, when will I, dispose of being afraid to be awkward? When will I be so confident in who I am that when I show someone that, they know one response, to fall at His feet? When?

I want to live a life that causes people to choose. I want to live a life that offers life.

I want Him to be my everything.

Everything

Here today, gone tomorrow.

For the first time in three years, I live in a place of relative permanence. I feel the pressures of becoming and conforming to the mold of what one does fresh out of college. Find a job, buy a house, get into excesses of debt and spend the rest of my life attempting to rid myself of those handcuffs. I know that I am not cut out for the average mold, the American stereotype living in suburbia does not suit me. Nevertheless, this is all that I see in front of me.

I have Jesus, and we have our dreams; I felt pulled back to my roots, the scenery much the same, the people have much changed. I am a new person, a renovation of the man that left 3 years ago. I have learned, I have grown, I have failed, and I have succeeded. But the true test of who I am and who I continue to become exists in being the changed and being the change from where the unchanged began.

I can be a new person in a new place. That is simply a task of defining my own reputation in a place with little preconceived opinion. It is where old habits lay dormant and former routines wait to be handled once more, where aged reputations serve as blockades for breakthroughs. It is here where the integrity of my identity will be subjected to its greatest adversary. Stand or engage with the comfortable worn down road of yesterday?

The kingdom is unshakable.
The kingdom breathes within me.
I will be the kingdom.
I will be unshakable.

The back of the book

5 days remain in my sojourn as a resident in Redding. Mixed emotions have become a staple in recent months. There is a sadness that is triggered when I think of the people I'm leaving, the experiences I've had, the opportunities left to fall. Then there is an excitement, a feeling of freedom; not going to a new place, but to a familiar home, a new person.

An uncontrollable smile was what I came to Redding with. Filled with excitement and curiosity to experience life on my own, to grow up, to try and fail, to learn then succeed. A quiet arrogance, that I had Jesus and life figured out, possessed me. I had been entrusted to carry and release His fragrance like these students had never experienced. I was confident, or so I thought, in reality, I was ignorant.

A frustrating year of not seeing a movement rise like I had seen in my dreams. A summer followed of heartache and betrayal. The plug was pulled on my emotions, my confidence, my identity was swallowed. The only thing I needed was to return to the haven that I loved, a place where I could be free again, but the return was different. The unscathed smile was forgotten. A hollow shell of what first came one year before was all that remained.

Stripped of knowledge, emotion, confidence, I forgot how to be loved, I forgot how to be happy, I had forgotten how to be sad, I forgot how to feel, I forgot who I was. Dreams were shattered, I was unsure of what it meant to be Andrew, and I hear these words "the fastest way to stop the hurting, is to stop feeling" - shutting it all down to avoid the painful. It was time to rebuild.

Round three, a summer spent with cautioned guard, unwilling to repeat the previous story. A reformation ensued; becoming stronger; rediscovering value. Hours pass searching with my eyes closed and face buried in the ground. Direction is what I wanted, identity is what I found. Posing questions of where and what, getting answers of who. Sifting through and burning away fear and pain to find the authenticity in the person who makes me.

The possessing false confidence that lacked humility had been broken and replaced. Poise in who He is, assurance in the numbered steps, humility to face who I am not, loved for who I am, and the pursuit of the realization as the man He and I dreamed about.

I am Andrew Paul Hogg.

Arizona I hope you are ready.

I am back.

Conversations

I’m finding the simplest way to diverting my focus in prayer is turning my awareness from Him towards myself. It is to keep myself watching my own mind and trying to produce feelings in respect to the prayer in which I’m praying. When I am expressing repentance and walking into forgiveness, to start manufacturing feelings for myself of forgiveness. When praying for boldness, to discredit my prayer unless I can produce some kind of courageous feeling to hold the coattails of my prayers. It is an attempt to assess the value of my prayer based on the intensity of emotional response I feel post-prayer; never considering how the internal feelings related are subject to my current physical state or whether or not I am tired, sick, or well.

What is the object in which I am directing my thoughts and concerns, my requests and needs, my hopes and my dreams? It is a composition of genuine and ridiculous invalid ingredients. It is the influence of culture, people, scripture, experience, my own person, and unknowingly long list. What would it look like, how would my intimacy shape if I could consciously order my prayers as not what I think He is but as what He knows himself to be?

I want to set aside all my thoughts and images, or at least, fully recognize their natural subjectivity and completely develop confidence in the external, invisible Presence with me in the room.

I want to find this unaffected nakedness in prayer.