I've been trying to read that for a while now. Actually, ever since Kevin gave it to me on the first day of the mission trip last year, so that makes it almost...7 months now? I guess so.
Anyway, it's been real hard to get into it, and usually just right when I do, I read and read and read and get so much out of it, and then something happens and I have to stop. Something being Pastor Herb's sermon is over or class is finished or I need to go and do something, so I've never been able to read about more than 1 chapter at a time.
Yesterda I knocked out almost 2 whole chapters and couldn't stop myself. I just kept reading and reading and reading. Just like always. I read here at home, I read once I got the chance to at church, and while I was taking my shower in between those two, I was contemplating all that I had read. I was beginning to think my good thoughts again.
And then, while I sat in Sunday School, I started to think how much I didn't really care for the music anymore. And then I started to think how things are going to look now that Kevin is gone. And when I sat down for the service in what some like to call "Big Church," I sat there and read saying that I could get more out of my book than listening to Pastor Herb. And then he made some sort of comment about something, and I criticized him for it to my friend Hunter, and then I also criticized his technique for preaching.
And then I realized I was out of control.
I had become too cynical. Way. Too. Cynical. I was so cynical I had already made up my mind that I was leaving Longbranch and never coming back if they couldn't get things together. I had decided that I didn't really need any or many of my friends because God will just provide for me. My newly developed cynicism had completely destroyed my "church experience" at Longbranch for me yesterday.
Now, I'm still cynical. I still want to finish "Orthodoxy" and learn new greater things, but I want my life back. I don't want to be this cynical at 17. I can't be this cynical at 17. I'm not smart enough, I'm not wise enough, I don't have enough credit by those who believe in me orknow me even. Why am I so cynical?
I know it comes from reading "Orthodoxy." And I know that this cynicism comes much like everything else in my life recently. I've had to give up almost every one of my desires and wants for God it seems like. I've been living a life that I don't really want lately.
My problem is that God is growing me up. HardxCore fast. He took away most of my social friends and gave me two rock solid accountability partners. He took away my desires for a girlfriend and gave me the most amazing, God-driven girl I've ever met. He's done a lot for me lately. A lot that I didn't want. A lot that I wouldn't mind settling for in 5 or 6 years, but not my senior year!
I'm very troubled. I very very recently thought my life would start to settle down back to a manageable pace, but instead God granted me the analytic thinking of highly trained expert professionals. It's killing me.