The necessity for motion

When I think of my elementary years I don’t usually have very fond memories. I usually think about how much I moved, reminisce about the violent and crazy people I knew and how unstable my life was at that time and then I usually skip forward to when I was seventeen and accepted Jesus as lord and life leader. But recently, in a unguarded moment I found myself reflecting on how important it was for me back then that I was in constant motion. This lead me to think about my parents situation back then. My parents did not have the greatest upbringing either. Both of them had to overcome unbelievable obstacles that were stranger then fiction (their childhood's would make Stephen King have nightmares). So when they married they came together with all their baggage and passed on to their children (most of it seemed negative) but one thing was positive...motion. A pivotal moment in our family was when my dad was laid-off from his long standing job of 17 years in 1981 and we lost everything. Both of my parents educations didn't exceed the 8th grade so manual labor was the only opportunity provided them but they chose that instead of government assistance even when government assistance would have given us more. In the third grade, I remember having to get up at 4 A.M. to go with my dad to start the coke ovens at a company called PermaCoat plastics, driving a forklift around the plant for fun (once I knocked down a flight of stairs, oops), after the morning plant chores I was taken to school by another plant worker named Robert E. Lee (I kid you not), spending the day at school, then going to the Uniontown Polish club (yes, I learned to play pool and polka) where my dad bar tended all night, only to starting the process all over again the next day. My dad and mom both worked at the plant, my mom stripped incoming pipes and my dad did a little of everything else. My dad made $2.85 and hour at the plant and even less at the Polish club and to add insult to injury the factory wouldn't pay him sometimes for a month. Some weeks we had nothing to eat but canned corn and canned tomatoes heated up with powder milk to drink. We lived in the projects and other run down housing. Once, my parents bought a duplex for $10,000 but soon lost it to the bank because they couldn't afford it. Life was unbelievably hard but my parents never gave up motion. They fought, kicked, scraped, had nervous break downs, were depressed, got back up, separated, drank to much, got new jobs, moved, clawed, bit, climbed, fell, bled, cried, tried, failed, pulled their hair out, found Jesus, lost him, found him again, went to school, worked harder, found a Steele mill in New Jersey, retired, went back to school and stayed together. All the while staying in motion...riding momentum. I honor that. I think their lesson saved my life. I have been on the edge of depression and suicidal tendencies I have been addicted to lying and pornography and fighting and cheating and I dropped out of High School and tried to out do Paul for the "chief of sinners" title meanwhile, I found Jesus all the while following in my parents foot steps of motion, work (I have been gainfully employed since I was twelve) and falling forward. So there is this little verse in the bible that says, "But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint."

Isaiah 40:31

and earlier in the passage I am assured of my redemption and that God is holding all things together. It use to bother like it bothered Tom Petty, (yeah, the waiting IS the hardest part) cause I am no good at waiting it frightens me. When I am not in motion I feel like the darkness will catch up and swallow me but I think I am starting to understand it, waiting does not mean we a stagnant it means we don't try to form answers to questions that God has not clearly spoken about. In other words, we move forward while we live with questions. Why is this world so messed up? Why do I want to hurt myself? Why are there stillborn babies born? Why are my parents alcoholics? There are endless questions that start with why and they can cause us to freeze like deer on a dark road in the middle of the night which is for them the worst time to wonder, "why is it so bright over there to my left, that's weird (famous last words)?" the best thing for us to do is keep moving. Luke 18 has this great passage about this very thing, persistence and motion which epitomizes everything we love about the apostle Paul and other bible character's of faith.

Luke 18

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

⁴"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

⁶And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

Faith is not psychological certainty but persistence into a idea like "God is good all the time" and then in all my questions I will begin with the premise God is good which will fuel my motion forward and eventually answers or peace on this side of heaven. We are assured that our persistence will not fall on blind eyes or deaf ears in heaven. So keep on fellow travelers and may God bless your feet.