the BLOG of stuart mcdonald

It know it’s been super long… ok, maybe only 4 days, but it seems like SO much longer to me, since I’ve posted last. I wrote this about a month ago and normally I’d go back and tweak things and make them sound pretty, but I’m just gonna give you what I wrote then…

I was so proud of myself and my ministry that I’d never admit that I had a problem. I was not in denial. I knew I had a problem, but I loved my ministries so much that I didn’t want to put them in jeopardy by telling someone what I was struggling with. I didn’t even think I could handle it myself. I expected God to just flip the switch and change my urges to be something I could control.

I would read books and listen to messages and have those ‘mountaintop’ experiences, but I would go home and nothing inside me would change. I’d have the same unhealthy thoughts as before, do the same foolish things. I knew what I was doing wrong, but that didn’t make much of a difference. I couldn’t shake it off me. I feel like a had a genuine desire to not be the person that I was, but I just couldn’t change me as much as I tried. It seemed like sometimes, God hadn’t changed a thing inside of me since the day he saved me.

I saw those around me looking up to me and thinking I’m a great example. I thought, “If you only knew what was really going on inside me, the ‘real’ me. If you knew what that looked like, you wouldn’t have such a high opinion of me.”

Out of this came a lot of self doubt and low self esteem (even though I don’t like to call it that). I felt worthless because I knew the ‘real’ me. I knew the me I was behind closed doors and it scared me. The only problem was that the me I saw wasn’t the me the Christ saw. He saw every bit of me; He saw my hurts, habits, hang-ups, flaws, and thoughts. He saw it all. And the fact that He loved me in spite of all my mess was absolutely incredible to me. I never though that anyone could do that.

I knew if people only knew pieces of me, they’d get a ‘good’ picture of the me, one I wanted them to see. I didn’t always ‘front’ like that, but I got very good a making sure I seeming like an honest, and genuine person, but really, I only let people in so far. Far enough to where they felt like they knew me , but not far enough to show them my foolishness.

I got real good at projecting a certain image and loved the image that I projected. The problem came when I got by myself. I saw the me I had been projecting to everyone all day long and was disappointed with what looked back from the mirror. That lyric in Kirk Franklin’s song “Imagine Me” where he says, “Imagine me loving what I see when the mirror looks at me” spoke volumes to me!

I liked what I saw physically when I looked in the mirror, but if I looked at myself eye to eye, there was something that made me uneasy. I knew I wasn’t fronting for myself and my eyes did, and still do, say it all. There was such a look of disappointment with myself but I didn’t know how to change or do anything different.

Nothing super deep for now… Just a few thoughts I jotted down while riding the Metro to meet my dad after the Inauguration drama.

• Today, a day that should have been incredible, was instead filled with disappointments for me. Why? Because nothing I expected to happen, did. It’s not really any one particular person’s fault.

• I did learn that I took for granted the way my dad and I travel.

• It’s always best to travel light. Whether it be with luggage or number of people, life is always easier with less baggage. It allows you to be more mobile and easily adapt to your surroundings.

• Always have a plan B! Always know your surroundings.

I have realized that I cannot grow closer to Christ for myself. No, there are people who need to see the God in me. People need to see that it is possible to live a Godly live according to His Word; they need to watch someone do it first before they step out and do it for themselves. There are those who look at me as an example and a leader for whatever reason and I must reflect who Christ is accurately. I cannot do that if I don’t have an intimate relationship with Him.

My relationship with Him is not for me. It is for others. It is for others to see what genuine intimacy with Christ looks likes. It’s to help them understand that you don’t have to be a recluse and forfeit a “normal” life just because you have a great relationship with God. Now there may be some things that I can’t get away with because of that relationship, but the same would be true if I were in any other intimate relationship.

With there being so many Pastors and Ministries ‘falling from grace’ I must live above reproach in all I do, representing Him with honor and integrity. People must be shown that there are people out there doing things the right way. I’m not by any means saying that I’m the only person doing so. I know that there are TONS of people doing things with character and integrity, but for some reason there’s not attention on them. Apparently it’s not interesting enough to show people that live their lives in a manor that is in alignment with the Word of God and the standards that are represented therein.

I want my life to be an open book. I want people to learn for my mistakes as much as my successes. I don’t want to brag about myself or my accomplishments. I know that anything I do is only because of Him.

One of my goals for 2009, really for the first half of 2009, is to move closer to GSU, where I’ll be attending school in the fall. As such, I decided to start cleaning out a lot of junk out of my car, room, and closet. I figure it’ll make things a whole lot easier when I move if I can just throw stuff in boxes instead of having to simultaneously clean. Today was the first real day of cleaning (and I shouldn’t say day because it was really only a few hours) and I feel like I’ve made, not even a dent, more like a ding. I’ve got a long way to go. During the course of cleaning I realized that there’s a lot of truth to the fact that the way that you keep your home is the way you keep your spiritual life.

My space had so much stuff piled up from the last 10 – 12 years of life. While I’ve taken the time to get a few things in order, I’d never really done a thorough cleaning. I just kept letting the junk pile up because I could still function with it there, I found a way to make due around it. There was dust so thick in some places because I just hadn’t touched those areas in a while, perhaps maybe 8 or 9 years. I found magazines and receipts from 2003 and earlier. I found pictures from 7, 8 years ago.

How could I have gone so long without finding these things? Convenience. It wasn’t convenient for me to take the time and clean everything out. It was much easier just to let the piles get higher and higher and slide things here and there. Maybe even occasional smaller cleanings to clear some space for some junk. But never an overhaul like this.

I thought, “How often do we do the same things I did in the physical, in the spiritual?” How often do we just push things aside to make room for more mess? Do we let issues go unresolved, just because it’s easier to pretend like they’re not really there? Are the ways and methods that we used to get us to where we are now going to take us to the next level?

Now that I’m moving into a new season, both spiritually, and geographically, it’s time to make a clean sweep and get rid of the things I no longer need. In order to move into the next season I have to examine my space and throw out the excess that may have been useful in the past, but no longer serves a purpose.

Needless to say, I’m not anywhere close to finished, but over the next few months, if I can chip at it here and there, before you know it, I’ll be finished. And then I’ll be ready for what’s next… Really ready.