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Disclaimer: this blog is dedicated to Asha, my dear friend and one of my three (okay, maybe four) dedicated readers. She called me up and asked me why I haven't blogged in awhile. Not only did I promise her a blog this weekend, I also promised to write it in her honor. So those who don't know Asha, she's pretty cool. But sorry men, she's taken.

With that being said.

I have been trying to write something funny and/or lighthearted and/or an inclusion of my life in the past month that I haven’t blogged about—Easter, formal, my recent desire to have my nails painted that hasn’t been present since I owned a Lisa Frank backpack—but really all I can think about is Colossians…where my heart has been sitting recently.

I also still keep thinking about this:

But that’s a different story, maybe for a different time. I will just say this: if you come to a formal that I plan, you ARE at risk of being injured. The facts speak for themselves.

Anyways, back to Colossians. I read this and chewed on it for a good few days.

“Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,”
-Colossians 2:6

And that sweet, sweet night when I was in second grade flooded back into my heart. Tiptoeing out of bed after lying there for hours with the phrase “I need Him” sweeping into my mind like an ocean tide, over and over again. Meeting my parents in the hallway, saying that phrase.

I need Him.

That was all I knew. I didn’t know the logistics. I didn’t know the historical context of Paul’s letters, nor did I know whether I was Calvinist or Armenian, or what life was all about or how to go about doing it. I didn’t know my stance on the whole boy-girl tension or what in the world God is doing when trials happen—and as a second grader, trials entailed writing my name in “the book” after trying to tell Blaire Bradshaw that she could indeed eat her graham cracker while we were all supposed to be silent. I only knew one thing. I knew I needed Him to be saved. There was only one way to be right with the only One that mattered, and it could only be done through Him.

That was all I knew when I received Him.

Flash forward to now.

Right now my chewed up gum is sitting on my chest because I was done with it and had nowhere to put it.

Told you.

Right now I have been getting advice from a bunch of different friends that all care about me deeply—and they’re all saying different things. Right now there are decisions to make, big decisions. Trying to love people without the expectation of reciprocation. Formal catering vans are flying off retaining walls and the corsage on my door reminds me of my junior recital fail in November. I am finding out about five page papers due at 10 pm when it is 2 pm.

Crap is happening, and trying to walk in Him like Paul is saying seems completely ambiguous and unattainable and far-reaching.

But when I remember how I received Him. When I remember that I didn’t know anything (guys, I STILL don’t know ANYTHING) but that I needed Him. And I didn’t know the logistics of how God’s wrath and judgment were completely satisfied on Jesus while He was on that cross, and that Jesus was my advocate and the one who paid my debt—I couldn’t quite wrap my head around all that.

But I knew I needed Him, and that those details and logistics would work themselves out. And I am starting to understand them, now.

So I guess if walking in Him looks like how we received Him, I need to childishly, humbly, and desperately crawl at His feet daily. With the admission that I don’t get all that life entails, I don’t know some of the decisions of life, I still don’t really know about the whole Calvinism/Armenian thing. But I know that I need Him.

And that walking in Him requires just as much effort and work on my part as my salvation did—which is none.

So each step is behind His own, each turn is at His command, and each climb is by His strength. He is both my map and my destination; my compass and the treasure I am seeking.

And the glorious, peaceful realization that I cannot—and should not—do this, just completely overwhelms me.

So I will say it again. Desperately, patiently, firmly, joyfully, and peacefully.

I need Him.