Struggling

Wow, I am really dejected.  I wrote a blogpost yesterday, after finishing it, I felt great. Not for long!  I've been walking around in a lie! There have been times where I have found true surrender and in that place God shows up. I always want him to show up in a low rumbling voice and tell me exactly what to do.  That is yet to happen, but he makes his presence felt in other undeniable ways.  In between these messages, I'm constantly getting in the way of his plan.  I hate it.  I hate that I can’t stay the course.

 

I look at myself as a professional investor. I want everybody to know this and for the most part everyone around me does.  This “professional” has been horrible. During my career I felt like I could turn anything into gold, and this really propelled me forward into this place that I am now.  I temporarily retired and about 2 years ago, I shook off the dust, I figured I would just pick up where I left off.  It has been anything but easy. It seems that everything I touch now turns from gold into the lead. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I ask God for wisdom and advice, and it is silent. My ego is still wanting to take credit for all that I have. I know this is folly, but most of the time, I still let it have its way. This really hit a head as I'm doing my taxes and seeing how much I owe to the IRS because I sold a bunch of stocks for large gains.  I should have held onto them; the gains would be larger. Remember that everything I touched turned to Gold?  These stocks are ones that I have held onto since that time.  The result?  I've simply missed out on participating in the largest capital appreciation event of my lifetime. How can I look myself in the mirror and think that I'm “good” considering this?  In fairness, I started praying that God would KILL my ego.  He is obliging.  When the pain became so great, I even asked him to stop killing it for a while in my prayers.  I guess he knows my heart because it hasn’t stopped.  In another blogpost, I talked about wanting an option to reset, to start over.  Man, I have wanted that, but I don’t think there is any stopping this, my ego is on life support, yes it may not ever truly die until my last breath, but it has been painfully incapacitated over and over.

 

I've been dealing with this anxiety on and off now for the last year and a half.  The realization that I have no idea what is going on in the financial markets has been hitting me hard and more gut wrenching is that it has been costing my family financially and emotionally as its effect on me reverberates.  There is nothing “Good” in anything I do!  My ego tries to hold on to scraps.  Like, “Hey that stock went up, it isn’t all bad, you aren’t that horrible.”  My power, separate from God IS HORRIBLE.  I asked this to be so, and well, should I be surprised that he has obliged?  Since I’m constantly reflecting on my actions, I feel like there's no way to get out of this hole and no end to this torment.  Fear grips me over and over.  God calms me each time, but I keep going back to that place and I’m very frustrated with my lack of control.  Technically I'm still well off. It is just disheartening that I keep hurting our financial position by doing stuff in an area that I'm supposed to be an expert in. I've spent 25 years studying the financial markets and intelligent investing and for what?  I'm horrible!  I keep asking God for advice in this area and it is just silent. I ask: Do you want me to do this? Do you want me to do something else? Do you want me to wake up at 2:00 AM and work really hard to... I've been blessed with so much. I've seen miracles. I participated in miracles.  I’ve been given wealth beyond anything I had ever dreamed of. But as we all know it isn't enough.  It will never be enough.

 

God touched my life in one of these fits of surrender where I was just going to walk away from my career because, well I surrendered to God and I just felt like this was not what I was supposed to be doing. I had decided to walk away and let God lead me.  I decided that I would take 6 months and pray to God and meditate on his presence with nothing else on my plate.  I had a week of surrender; an indescribable peace came over me.  Then, in a very surprising turn of events he blessed us financially, he gave me what I was after in the first place.  Only by letting go of it did he give.  He gave me more wealth than I had ever had before.  He gave me certainty for my family. There goes the peace!  Of course, I regressed. My ego got the better of me. It became about me again.  Then as a testament of endless grace, he blessed me again. He gave me a blessing that could never truly be explained. In a near death experience, combined with perfect surrender, I saw the other side. There are no words to describe it.  It would be futile for me to try to put this down on paper it cannot be explained.  But what I witnessed was better than anything imaginable.  What I witnessed was the truth and it was the most real experience that I have ever witnessed in my life.  I truly was angry that I was brought back. This blessing only happened at the instant I surrendered to him. I remember exactly what I said, “I guess this is it God, and I'm OK with it.” when I thought those words, IT was shown to me. In that perfect instant of surrender there was an eternal opening.  My faith skyrocketed.  My career mattered not after this moment nothing did for a while.  So again, after that event, I decided that I was going to walk away from my career.  He guided me, AGAIN, he put me right back on that path with this experience. Again, his grace is endless.  I found peace from that time until I was about to retire. Then... I decided to make a little more money. God said no, in another turn of events, my prayers were answered, God was protecting me yet again and I was fired from my job.  His grace has no end, and I am so grateful for that.  I didn’t have the power within me to turn away, he knew it, he did it for me.  

 

Now, proud to be in Hawaii living the dream, I'm trying to do the job I used to do with my eye on God.  But now, I am horrible at it. My expectation was that being at peak spiritual development must help me in the real world, right?  I'm in the word of God more than I have ever been.  I pray continuously.  I read the Bible daily.  When I say daily, I mean throughout the day, many times all day I am opening my Bible and reading. I read it more than I read anything else now.  I understand more every day.  All these experiences, prayer, and study have resulted in immeasurable faith, but I am still stuck in our human world of sin. Constantly my tiny beaten up ego still takes over!  It wants me to make more money and it is very upset every time I'm wrong. Well, I've been wrong a lot. My ego keeps getting up and each time it takes a beating. My ego is all but dead now.  And I find myself back in that place is surrender. Until now I've only been trying to fake surrender so I can get access to those blessings that I once had. Particularly as it pertains to my job.  How can this little mind expect to lie to God and get away with it?  How naïve am I?  After all I’ve been shown, all my blessings, all my study, I think I can manipulate God?  It is embarrassing, I am ashamed. 

 

So, in stating this, the manipulation is gone.  Yesterday I laid down and I prayed to go back to that place of perfect peace. I prayed for God to take me up.  As morbid as that sounds, I know what lies in wait. So why wouldn't I pray for this?  Will I miss my family?  Actually, there is no pain there is no suffering.  My human self foresees missing my family.  My human self aches for my family.  I KNOW that once I'm there, there will be no pain.  I’m praying for some direction from God and waiting and listening, but it is so hard to be obedient in patience.  I want to make things happen. I feel like I'm doing the wrong things because the tangible blessings aren't coming in the form that they came in the past.  I really don't know what to pray for, but I won't quit praying. My faith will not waiver.  I will do my best to be obedient.  I will try my hardest to not sin.  I know I’m a failure and that pains me.  Yes, I've gotten pretty good at not sinning in any large ways. But the micro sins torment me every day. Jealousy, Gossip, sins of the heart.  To be honest, oftentimes I don't know where the line is, cross it and come away confused.  I wish I knew better.  I'm very sad in all this confusion.  

 

If God ever blesses me again with the wisdom and knowledge of the financial markets, I will do my best to give all glory where it's due.  I’m sad that I will never do enough to repay all he has done for me.  I ask him every day and prayers, what is it that you want me to do?  I'm telling him I’m confused, I do my best to give it all to HIM and be obedient. I often joke that I should walk the earth like Caine.  Just like Jules talks about in Pulp Fiction, which references the 70’s TV series Kung Fu.  I digress, but Cain’s punishment for killing his brother Able in the book of Genesis was to be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth and it appears this is the source of the story in the show Kung Fu, which is picked up again in Pulp Fiction.  Anyway, I don’t want to be Cain, but being a directionless sinner has often made me think of this.

 

The love for God I have has never been greater.  I ask that your will be done.  Amen.