Hardship

"I am jealous of you, Aaron!" The college age minister says to me. My face makes an expression of confusion, with my eyebrow popping upwards. The college age minister continues and says, "I am jealous that your uncomfortable, because I know that Jesus is with you." It is so easy to be comfortable and forget to continue to chase after a more deeper level of faith.

The hardship of this summer keeps rolling. I want to so badly enjoy another savory taste of camaraderie, community, fellowship, laughter, and freedom. These words could easily be summed up by a simple word, intimacy.

I want camaraderie with those who I have built friendships with. This camaraderie does not even have to be people i have know for long. There are people that you hang with, chill, and kick back that make you think, "I feel like I've know this person forever!" I love those kind of people, and that making hanging out such a good time.

I want community! I want to be apart a group of people that know each other's lives. This would include a group of people of all sorts of backgrounds, ethics, personalities, career choices. It would not mean anything to me, but a consistent group of people that I could share live with. I love community and just the blatant honesty to say I am hurting here, or needing something here, but to have a community that supports me.

I want to fellowship with people. I want to be able to have company over. The people share food, drinks, memories and laughter. We take Friday night's by the ear, and make them into evenings of celebrations of each others lives no matter how petty the celebration is. We are creating some form of social invitations and making sure people are apart of something big. Man i use to have this.

My life use to have such a strong social structure or what some sociologists would call an ecosystem. I had a structure of people who pour into me, then i would have long and full plateau of peers, friends, buddies, people, coworkers i socialized with frequently. My life was not boring.

The sadness of life currently stems around the fact that loneliness is my scheduled everyday. I wish i knew how to fill all those spaces with fellowship, community, camaraderie. Therefore these facets would bring in laughter and freedom from this awful loneliness. This loneliness can easily get to a point of feeling helplessness, hopelessness, and just not having a purpose. People are tangible aspect of intimacy that God wants to have in our relationship with him. Even though he is the only purpose that can bring satisfaction in our lives. The truth still returns to what John Piper right as the over arching idea in his book, Desiring God, "God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him."