Why I'm Up So Early
I woke up at 2:25am this morning, and I couldn't go back to sleep. After a minute or two, I realized that there was a kleenex still sticking out of my left nostril, where I'd inserted it the night before. I thought about how stupid I must look, but then realized that no one was looking and delighted in how nice it was to have something there to catch the snot from my recent cold. What is it about being human that now I am here, telling this story to the world at large? "Hello, everyone!"
I have had a lot of trouble sleeping consistently lately, and it's not because I'm a new mom or anything normal like that; it's because I'm acting again.
Acting, singing, dancing, being part of a story on stage or screen, is a whole realm of being that just makes me giddy. I feel so alive when I am living as an artist. But at play rehearsal last night, I felt it again. I was, on a higher level, so blissfully happy and in my element, but on a deeper, more gut level, very discontent.
I battled a lot with this in New York, and it has a lot to do with why I stepped back from acting a year ago. And Jesus is so sweetly showing me that I don't always have to quit what I love so dearly to follow him, but I do have to learn more about something that is near and dear to his heart, and that is worship. He's been showing me that we are all built for worship, to be obsessed with something and to cling desperately to it and to be filled up by it--it seems that we can't not worship.
Earlier this year, I read a book called Counterfeit Gods, written by Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan. I had heard a lot about Tim because I had been getting involved in the actor's group at the church.
In the book, Tim talks about the idols that we make in our life. He says that we often take good things and make them into ultimate things, thinking that they can fulfill our needs and satisfy us completely, when only the God of the Bible can do that. I have to admit, it was hard for me to fully grasp what he was saying, but I think I am learning more as I go along.
At around 3:30 this morning, laying on the couch in my husband's sleeping bag, I realized that worship is why I have felt so discontent. Not only have I been looking for full satisfaction from acting, going needy and longing to play rehearsal only to be disappointed, but I have also tried to remedy this problem by thinking and analyzing and generally trying really hard to manipulate myself back into submission to God. This has made me even more miserable.
Jesus was reminding me sweetly this morning that the only way for me to get back to His way of life, back to his peace, is to come to him like a little child. A friend of mine was talking last night about a role he'd done in a play, and said he would play that character his whole life if they'd let him, because, "I'd love to be a 5-year-old for the rest of my life." I totally get that.
I can't reason myself like an adult into God's way of doing things--it seems that the only way I can change is to realize that I am a little kid to God, and that He is my loving daddy who is delighted at every little step I take while I learn to walk. In the Bible, in Mark 10:15, Jesus is telling his entourage, "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." (Think of the "kingdom" as where what the king--Jesus--wants done gets done.)
I realized early this morning on the couch that my mind has been acting like an ill-treated slave, keeping me up at night trying to think of all the ways I can change what I do so that I'll get what I want--satisfaction--from the acting piece of my life. I've seen people do this with their work, looking for satisfaction and significance in their job, only to become a slave to it. It seems that we really do become a slave of what we worship.
But when I am worshipping God, I am a slave to the most loving of masters.
"It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep."
-Psalm 127:2, the Bible
Why am I up so early? I think it's because of what I've been worshipping. Daddy, can you help me walk?
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