How do you explain restlessness? It is a stirring of the heart that almost seems to purposely avoid explaining itself to the mind. In spite of being illogical, the desperate reactions of a restless being seem to be... right... at the same time. Often, though, these reactions later make more sense as the consequences unfold themselves to reveal truth.
So why am I sleeping outside, away from my warm, comfortable bed? I don't know if I have an answer that any mind would truly except, but after the fourth night some formulation has begun...
[get the big picture]
After returning home around midnight, I began to assemble my tent, recently arrived from Nashville. All of west Tennessee had been battered by a storm system since 7pm, so I was glad to have some shelter in case another front moved through in the night. Around 1am I crawled into my sleeping bag and zipped up the fly, settling in to read for a time before falling asleep. I recently finished Donald Miller's, Through Painted Deserts, and had begun another book of his: Searching for God Knows What. I don't think I read more than a paragraph before realizing that I was falling asleep, but I do remember the last few lines talking about how Jesus has allowed us to view God through a relationship, and that this gives us an advantage over the Israelites in the Old Testament who probably viewed God as frightening and easily angered. It is true that God is frightening, but this is not because He is an angry God. He is a mighty God, and fear is not an unhealthy response at times, especially when balanced with the love Jesus demonstrated that God has for us.
As I slowly started to fall asleep with distant lightning still striking in all directions I remembered an enormous tree that collapsed in our yard a few months ago during a storm. A little uneasy, I made myself wake up enough to crawl back out of my tent just to make sure there were no more eyeing me in my tiny tent to break their fall later that night. Sure enough, twenty yards back a giant of a tree stood ominously as if watching every move I made. I stood very still, almost holding my breath like an animal being hunted as I weighed the danger. After a moment it seemed highly unlikely that this tree would fall and if it did, that it would land on me out of all the places it could land... this thought was ignoring that this tree was so large that if it fell anywhere in the yard it would be on top of me anyway. So, having convinced myself of some false safety I silently snuck back into my shelter and quickly fell asleep.
At 3am I jumped up in a panic, my ears ringing for moments after the thunder. The earth seemed to shake, and for a moment I considered the apocalypse. As it echoed itself over and over, each bomb-like crack in the sky seeming louder than before, I remembered my nemesis, the tree. I turned to look out a back window in the tent, squinting my eyes until the sky lit itself up with lighting bolts, one after another, creating a silhouette of the ominous thing. It was only moments before I was out of my sleeping bag and headed inside with the excuse that I really needed to pee, regardless of the fact that I had also been peeing outside all week. Inside the house shook, dishes rattled, and windows seemed like they wanted to just give up and shatter against the noise. After relieving myself, I stood on the porch just as sheets of rain followed by hail fell from the sky and it occurred to me that I was actually afraid. I don't think that I thought I was going to die. I felt... small. I looked up at the glowing sky as crash followed flash over and over like a heavenly war. I remembered the last lines I had read in the book hours before and I felt the might of God. I was like a child who knows his father loves him, yet who would be scared out of his mind to see his father upset. My insides were shaking from the noise, I was shivering from the cold and wet, and I was in awe at the power of a God who could hold all of this, happening all around me, in his hands. I found myself singing, How Great Thou Art, very softly to myself, but really to Him.
I was on the porch for probably near twenty minutes, and tried to sleep in my tent after that, but the storm kept on and I could not fall asleep. So with a wound to my pride, I grabbed my pillow and returned to my bed. Today I found out that there was a tornado only miles south of me, so I'm not sure I still regret being driven inside. I found words, though, for why I was outside. Maybe I hoped the clean night air would be a catalyst, but all I really wanted was for something to happen. I wanted truth to be revealed to me. I wanted to be taken into, and become a part of that truth. The terrible beauty of last night is still with me. Sometimes we need a firey bush, or a talking donkey, or Eli's voice in the night. For me it wasn't a voice. It was a heavenly war shrinking my massive ego, and giving me perspective to see the might of an awful creator that I am simultaneously driven and drawn to love.
So, tonight is day 5 of 14. I could easily stop now. I have my memory, or my experience if you will. But I think it would be a really bad idea to stop now that the ball is rolling. So, I'm grabbing my pillow (and probably a blanket tonight!) and going back outside.
