Brain on Pause

I took the Strengthfinders 2.0 test last year. My results were Strategic, Intellection, Input, Ideation and Restorative. For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, just to say I'm a thinker is an understatement. My sister commented yesterday when I told her my results; "Wow, could you be more in your head?" Don't think so. :P

We had been talking about how to go to the next level in my quiet time. I'm very frustrated in mine. I'm going through Graham Cooke's interactive, 'The Way of the Warrior' set, which is amazing. It is intercessory and strategic, and it asks great questions. It pushes me intellectually which is great...but I still find that frustrating. Since I'm just rigged to be a thinker, understanding God on an intellectual level has always been a natural and easy thing to do. But if I'm only going to understand God intellectually, how does that make my faith any different from Buddhism? Hinduism? Atheism? After all, faith is just setting your mind on a belief system. What makes it true is not my ability to believe it, or argue it. Since anyone who passionately follows their faith can do that.

If God is real, and good, and all around me...if His Son really came and died for me and brought me the opportunity to have relationship with Him, then I am not satisfied to just know Him like I know that 2+2=4. In fact, if I wanted to, I could argue that math has no basis in reality and that it is only how we are choosing to measure an idea. Math does not exist. Do you see my problem? My experience with God needs to be more than reality.

The only way I am able to sidestep my brain and pursue Him on a relational and spirit centered way is through worship. I find certain songs that I can play and immerse myself in that hops right over my brain and puts me in His lap. It's like I walk through a forest of architectural symmetry and step into a world of colorful jello. It can't be compared to each other. This is what I'm going for in my quiet time. I'm not turning my brain off; I'm pursuing what He wants to do in my emotions and in my spirit. I'm not very good at it, because I keep trying to figure it out when it needs to be less like Tinkertoys and Legos and more like finger painting and jumping into ball pits or bowls of icecream.

This is just my journey; I don't know what yours is. There are moments that I've had with Him that transcend my little formulaic, reality grounded brain. I hold on to these like a baby holding his lovey. Not ever satisfied, not ever ever. I want to go where no one has gone before, do what no one has done before. A laid-down lover.