To Hell With Boxes

That's how my prayer ended this morning. 

To hell with boxes. 

Which seems strange, because boxes are innocuous, right? Usually they're pretty helpful. They keep us organized. They help us both start and end chapters of our lives as tools when we move. They allow us to store things, so we can become sentimental packrats (anyone else?)

But it's those intangible boxes I'm talking about.

The boxes that tell us who we are, or who we should be. The boxes society dictates to us, based on innumerable factors. The ones we put others in so we can try to understand them. The ones we put God in so we can try to understand Him, which is a fruitless task as He's infinitely beyond our understanding. 

This morning I was praying over the depression and anxiety I've been living in lately, struggling with where I am vs where I want to be, who I am vs who I think I should be, all I long for vs what I have. Struggling over what I think others believe about me, over their expectations of me, over their judgments of me. Struggling over the world's hurts and the hate that has so easily entrapped us. 

Some boxes are personal. We create them for ourselves or we allow the world to create them for us. Are we up to standards? Do I meet certain criteria for adulthood, like a steady job or marriage or travel or having roots? Am I speaking correctly? Am I fun or serious or angry or happy or pleasant or passionate? Am I too much, not enough, or just right? 

Some boxes are societal. These boxes tell us what to believe about other people. If someone lives here, is from there, has this or that job, speaks that language, loves that person, disagrees with me, has that religion, is that race, wears those clothes, committed that crime, etc.

The boxes are endless.  

At times, they're ok. Good even. But more often than not, those expectations and boxes have got to be dismantled because those boxes are harmful. They harm us by not allowing us to live in the full expression of who we are. They harm others because we limit or judge based on these boxes. They harm our ability to love, to be in community, to have real unity. When we live out of boxes, and impose boxes on ourselves and others, no one thrives. In a physical move, living out of boxes makes it hard to feel at home. Living out of boxes in life keeps us from being home for each other. 

I have written before on how my life looks nothing like I thought it would, yet how I genuinely love it. How normal isn't normal anymore. But here's what I don't say: sometimes, I just wish it weren't. Sometimes, I wish my life looked like I always imagined. Sometimes I get frustrated over the fact that my life is not "comfortable" anymore. 

I get frustrated that God answers prayers like "let me see as You do" or "make me love like You" because when He does, He utterly disrupts everything. 

This morning I was frustrated because living in this utterly disrupted new normal kind of life feels like walking a tight rope through a bunch of expectations, dreams, and boxes. It's a constant unlearning and relearning, perpetual dismantling of boxes & then building something better. It's a constant balancing act, learning how to live in the tension and be okay with it. It's exhausting. Hard. But good. And so worth it. 

As He's proven over and over in my life, God loves all of us too much to let these boxes stand. He didn't intend us to live life out of boxes, walled in by arbitrary expectations. Comfortable is not something Jesus said we would have when we followed Him. He did promise Love. Life to the full. Abundance. Strength, courage, passion. Life lived through the Holy Spirit. 

So to hell with boxes. Let's live out of Him instead.