So I started my experimental work in the laboratory on the 16th of June and it has been a month filled with 6+hours of lab time a day and walking into an empty apartment as my roommate was away for 3weeks during the winter-break. I still remember feeling very angry and dejected one day when I just had so much work to do and it seemed so fruitless as I am working on the beginning stages of drug research. So it includes repeated experiments for 5days a week for 8-10weeks and this was not at all what I signed up for. Feeling as if in my mind my 1st year of research would be filled with exciting new compounds and results would be popping up randomly of groundbreaking research. But I guess it was a learning curve for me that things really do take time and its in the ditches and the valleys of life where we learn stuff. Its in the darkness that the greatest photographs are developed. So that's just a snippet of the past couple of weeks of my life, just want to encourage you all that you may be in that place where you feel what you are doing does not seem to producing anything. Just be encouraged that your effort does not go unseen and most times a work is being done in us than around us.
So back to the reason for this blog, I remember chatting to my best friend yesterday and telling her how I needed a new pair of jeans and would have to find a way to budget for me.She looked at me perplexed and asked why I just wouldn't ask my mom to buy me a pair since she would be around for the whole week. I looked at her and told her how I was on the cusp of 24 and I couldn't be relying on my parents to buy me clothes. It then struck me this morning how it had become hard and near impossible to ask my parents for money. I feel a sense of there is an expectation more from myself than anyone else to take care of myself. That it's a sign of maturity to not be dependent on anyone for anything especially my parents. I wonder if that's how we behave with God and the family (the church) God has provided for us. It's seems like such a cultural expectation that being a Lone Ranger is a sign of maturity, especially for guys moving out is what we think about the most once we have hit the ripe age of 18. But is it biblical though? Do we feel the need to be okay all on our own even in our christian lives. Is it maturity not to depend on your family and see things through on your own. When we have troubles in our christian walk do we steer away from counsel and family(the church) security and want to make it all on our own. I think the bible makes in clear in so many cases of great men and women of God and how they were always in community. It speaks of David's mighty men and how they had many exploits, how David slayed his ten's of thousands but interestingly enough it was always him and his mighty men. I think the clearest verse for me that shows the sense of togetherness that is required for true christian maturity is Hebrews 12:1-3:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
If Lone Rangers were the way to go then I think the writer of Hebrews would have used the words "Since you are surrounded... and ... you should run with...." But the emphasis on 'let us' in this verse is unmistakable. So I just want to encourage us all to not have a world view but a biblical view of maturity which is one that does not make us lose our independence but allows us to embrace and realise our need for interdependence.
So I guess am guess I am getting those jeans after all... :)
Love, peace and happiness
Tau
