God is repetitive

A couple weeks ago I was in Hawaii. Sigh….

As we drove to the beach on our last day there, my mom and I had a discussion about Hawaiian words. How I can’t pronounce any of them properly, for starters. I mean, how would you pronounce Kapaa or Poipu or Lihue? (However you said it, I can pretty much guarantee that’s not it). I might as well have been trying to speak French. Also, as we went through the spelling of the various cities and areas we visited, we noticed a few things. There are some letters they rarely if ever use ( s, t, and r for example) and some that they use repeatedly (k,w,p,m and lots and lots of vowels).

Fast forward about an hour as we were laying in the sun. We started talking about a study my mom was doing. It happened to be written by one of my favorite authors, Beth Moore. This led us to bring up Anne Lamott, another favorite author of mine. I told my mom that a couple people have told me that my writing reminds them of hers. My interpretation of that compliment is that it’s mostly because we are both pretty honest about our own messed up selves and tend to land on similar topics like grace and love and vulnerability.

But there is a huge difference in that she is a real writer who uses smart words and creative and intentional descriptive sentences that are simply way out of my league. My blogs are like the Walmart version of her Ralph Lauren writing. And that’s when it hit me and made me laugh out loud; I am like the Hawaiian version of Anne Lamott! There are just some words and letters she uses that I will never, ever be able to use. And most of all, I am Hawaiian in that I repeat the same few words over and over and over. I use words like “like” and “thing” and “very” and “soooo much”. My descriptive repertoire (I had to look up how to spell that!) is sorely lacking and simplistic.

My vocabulary is not the only thing that is repetitive. The more I write, the more I see the pattern. My topics are also repetitious. Any given blog you read will address issues with worry, anxiety, trust, fear, control, grace and acceptance. And to be honest, while that used to cause me to feel dumb and narrow, I now feel like I am in good company. Because you know who else is repetitive? God. And if this is one way I can be more like Him, I’ll take it.

If you have ever read the Bible, or even if you haven’t, you should know that even though there are approximately 807,361 words used in the Bible, they tend to highlight certain themes over and over and over in different ways. The main two topics that run throughout the Bible are 1) love God and 2) love people. God also regularly address how we should handle worry, anxiety, fear, control and how to live a life of peace and contentment as we trust His will over our own. It’s rather repetitious when you get right down to it.

I repeat myself because I struggle with the same tendencies on a regular basis. The tendency to let worry and fear dominate, resulting in complete lack of trust in God’s plan for me and the world around me. The tendency to control; to force solutions so that life works out the way I want it to or make people around me live up to my expectations. The tendency to withhold unconditional love and grace and judge others as if I were the great “I AM”. From what I have heard from readers, I am not alone in these tendencies.

But God has gone ahead of us and given us His words of comfort and wisdom to help us navigate this repetitious life-cycle we are riding. He gives us the tools and promises to find relief from these areas, if we choose to use them. He knows it’s a life long battle for us, which is why He repeats Himself. He tells us the answers in a thousand different ways so He can get His main messages to us across in just the way we need to hear it.

I have a strong tendency to forget to keep the main things the main things. Thank God He is repetitive.