Uninspired.

 

I feel uninspired.

 

Theatrical instrumentals drum in the background, crescendoing and crashing with fervor.  I often turn on tracks to invoke emotion— all in the vain hope that it will stir up some sort of feeling in me.  When the feelings come— whether they are good or bad— I feel inspired.

 

When good feelings come up, I feel inspired to write, inspired to learn… inspired to move.  When I can tune into my emotions and I experience the joy, happiness, and elation of my heart, I am stirred into passion to change and create.  I design, write, and build.  Joyous and passionate craftsmanship makes me an architect of all things beautiful.

 

However, there is a flip side.

 

Sometimes, I fight desperately to invoke passion in my life. Instead of joy, love, and hope, feelings of sadness, depression, and anger well up.

 

When negative feelings come up, I feel inspired too.  When self-hatred arises, I feel motivated to work out and lose weight.  When anger boils up, I feel inspired to be passive and reclusive.  When sadness and bitterness overtake me, I feel inspired to run away.

 

I find excuses as to why the negative inspirations are anything but negative.  “Losing weight is a good thing.  I need to lose weight.” “I could be hurling words at them but instead I am retreating and preserving their feelings.”  “I am helping others and helping myself at the same time.”

 

Worldly justifications fight to swallow the injustices of my decisions inspired by bitterness.  Because my inspiration resulted in something that could be defined as a “good”, I write off the negative circumstances under which it was born so that I remain holding the credit.

 

Simply put, my mind fights to reach the goal with no moral attachment to what it requires to get it there.

 

 

 

Losing and failing don’t bother me much.  I am completely uncompetitive, and it doesn’t usually bother me to admit that I’m wrong in a situation.  I see life as one grand learning experience and failing is a large part of learning.  Through the eyes of grace, I can falter, fall, and fail with no shame, seeing it as an advantage and not a hindrance.

 

And while failing doesn’t normally fill me with fear, something more insidious and crippling often does.

 

While I am unafraid of losing, I am afraid of being weak.

 

Weakness feels like a dirty word.  It bites at me like I imagine most people feel like failure bites at them.  It is painful and intimidating and caked in shame.  In my jaded mind, weakness means that I cannot do everything myself, which requires me to need God or people, which leaves me feeling totally out of control.

 

Out of control and out of ways to gain it back, weakness is one of my greatest fears.

 

2 Corinthians 12:9 eats at me.  For years the words, “My power is made perfect in your weakness,” have been hurled at me by my own religious heart and the hearts of those around me.

 

They desire to help.  I desire to help myself.  But every time I hear those words, my heart hardens into stone, shuts out the truth and beauty found in them.

 

Growing up in a broken and abusive home, self-preservation was not a prideful tactic. Rather, it was a survival one.  I had to be independent.  I had to protect myself.  I was responsible for my own well-being and the well-being of my brothers as well.  I had to be strong.  We all depended on it.

 

If I was weak, I would suffer.  If I was weak, my brothers would suffer.  If I couldn’t stand on my own or protect them, we wouldn’t have survived.  The weight of the world felt like it was bearing down on my shoulders and there didn’t seem to be any way to escape that.

 

Now that I’m an adult and have a better situation, I should be free of that mindset.  Logically, I can assume that the mindset of responsibility was one unfairly put on me out of necessity, but it is no longer necessary for me to bear the weight of anyone else’s burden— not even my own.

 

Jesus stood in my place.  I am not responsible for anyone else.  I am not even responsible for my own burden of sin, because Jesus liberated me from that yoke by taking it Himself.

 

Yet the fear of spiraling into weakness remains.

 

So, I cling.  I cling to my own strength, my own intelligence, my own survival tactics.  I ignore the truth that I am provided for and I live as if I am still some shabby child fighting to survive.  I fight because I don’t want to lose control, because I am deeply afraid of losing control.  So, I attempt to manufacture the fulfillment of my own needs so that I’m never out of control, and therefore, that I am never weak.

 

Feeling uninspired leaves me feeling defeated.  Rather than seeing it as an empty space that the Lord can fill, I so often see it as a failure to provide for myself.  Needing to be inspired— be it needing inspiration to write, work, eat healthy or socialize— leaves me with just that: a need.

 

I often attempt to conjure up emotion, submersing myself in music or provoking thoughts, believing that something will spark some bit of life to my hollow heart.  I poke and provoke to strike life into me, all for fear of needing— all for fear of being weak.

 

I am the creation striving to be the Creator.  It is as simple as that.

 

I do it in so many areas of my life… trying to fill the God-shaped hole in my heart with my own devices as I fight to remain unattached and independent.  I fight, and it seems to work, until one day it doesn’t.  It seems to work until my inspiration flees and I’m left unemotional, unattached and uninspired.

 

Uninspired.

 

I’m left uninspired.

 

There are many days when I cannot even muscle up enough inspiration to get out of the bed.  There are days when I’m uninspired in my work or my writing, but it goes far beyond that.  Some days I’m uninspired to start eating while there are other days that I’m uninspired to stop.  Some days I lack motivation to put on real clothes or leave my house.  There are far too many days when I feel uninspired to worship or pick up a Bible.

 

I feel uninspired and I feel weak because of it.

 

Yet in the darkness of toxic independence, there is a light.

 

Even in the accumulation of guilt that satan tries to tie to my struggle, I find that there is no shame present.

 

 

“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

 

2 Corinthians 12:9 NASB

 

 

The more I fail, the more I strive to be independent, and the more I seek out my own strength to inspire me, the weaker I’m feel.

 

I am left weak by the very things that I have agreed with to become strong.  I am left weak, and Jesus is left with the opportunity to heal me.

 

When I lose, I win.  When I win, I win.  Either way, Jesus wins, so I win.

 

When I willingly and humbly admit that I am weak, it allows Jesus to come into my life and be my strength.  Even when I deny it and attempt to live my life alone, the fighting and striving leaves me bruised and broken— weak— and Jesus still comes in and saves the day.

 

Either way, I am provided for.  Either way, His grace is sufficient.  Either way, I am safe.

 

So, I am left with a choice.  How do I want to be moved?  How do I want to be inspired?  How do I want to accomplish the work in my life?

 

Where I once would have a need and strive to fulfill it on my own, I can now be empowered by the truth of God to lean into Him and receive His help.

 

Where I once would struggle for words and for the motivation to live my everyday life, I can now trust that He is the fulfiller of my needs and I want for naught.

 

The goal in life is so often to produce and to perform that we cut corners and agree with unrighteous motivations just to see something accomplished.

 

We strive to be independent of others and to relieve any sense of burden from our conscious that we are either left drowning in the weight of our own unmanageable responsibilities or we lie and cheat and scam our way to the finish line.

 

Either way, in the end, we are left unclean, unsatisfied, and unaccomplished.

 

So often we “win”, but at what cost?

 

That leads me to this conclusion:

 

It is better to remain uninspired in the presence of the Lord than it is to remain inspired separated from it.

 

When we are left crippled by the weight of our responsibilities, fighting just believe that it is worth it to wake up in the morning, we search out our own strengths, our own inspirations, and our own motivations.  The joy and the hope of the Lord is right there if we just agree to reach out and take it.

 

We may force ourselves up out of bed and call it a success, but in the battle to be self-sufficient, we lose peace and joy and love for life.  Whereas, if we surrender to the Lord, allowing Him to have control and allowing Him to inspire us in His own way, at His own pace, we find transcendental peace and grand hope and love that rules throughout the ages.

 

Maybe it means that we don’t get out of bed.  Maybe it means that we stay home from work and never get out of our pajamas.  Maybe it means that we rest for a day even though our mind is telling us that it is a bad idea.  Maybe allowing God control is what cures you from your need to be in control.

 

Inspiration is carried in on the wings of love and safety.  When you are safe, you are healed.  When you are healed, you are whole.  When you are whole, you are not lacking.  When you’re not lacking, you’re made strong in the Lord and capable of taking on the world.

 

At the end of the day, something moves you.  Something inspires you to be the way that you are and talk the way that you talk.  Something motivates you to get out of bed and write that book and parent those children.

 

The question isn’t “will you be inspired?”, it’s “what will you be inspired by?”

 

Choose Jesus.  Let Him be your inspiration.