It's just Me Abby

“To be or not to be?”

Perhaps the most iconic question ever posed, rivaling “Does God exist?” and “What is truth?” And it may be that Shakespeare, when he penned the infamous line in Hamlet, was pondering the very existence of God and absolute truth as he stared into the face of suffering.

“To be or not to be?”

A question that stirs the soul’s philosophy, and one that’s asked far more often than we may realize.

Tragedy demands it: Can we bear to continue on when loss has hallowed us? Depression whispers it: Can we stay present when it’s safer to retreat into gloom? Fatigue echoes it: Can we press on when everything in us is begging to shut down?

“To be or not to be?”

Last week, my family and I, with my father-in-law in tow, drove through the French Quarter, windows down, osmosing the sights and sounds. The midweek nightlife in the French Quarter is less dazzling for the eager tourist, but for us locals, it was a welcomed break from the weekend chaos. We strolled down Decatur Street after dinner, enjoying the slower rhythm of the city. We wound our way out of the Quarter and turned left onto Esplanade, heading toward the 7th Ward.

Now some might think to roll the windows back up since you’re out of the Quarter–but not us. We kept them down as we moseyed along Esplanade at 35 miles per hour, observing the beautiful architecture and the interesting characters slipping in and out of the shadows.

And then our eyes caught him—the man sprinting down the sidewalk coming our direction. And just as he passed our car…

BANG!

A second man not far behind, arm outstretched, gun in hand, was shooting at him.

For a few breathless seconds, none of us spoke. Greg kept driving. The man kept running. Our minds scrambled to process what we’d just seen.

His hard face and appearance gave off the impression that he either lived on the streets or was, at least, well acquainted with them. I don’t know why he was running, and I don’t know if he remains “to be” or is not.

But this I do know, God’s hand covered my family as the gentleman and the bullet passed our car. I trust that God has numbered our days, which means, we still have days “to be” before we are no longer.

“To be or not to be?”

A deeply spiritual question—one that confronts the true measure of our faith. For if we were to honestly consider such a thought, it would challenge the apathy or hypocrisy that may have quietly taken root in us.

In my last blogpost, I wrote of my longing to wake up—to shake the complacent daze I had slipped into that kept me cozily apathetic. It was comfortable, yes, but it’s not the kind of faith I want to live by. I needed God to awaken me — and, at last, He did.

I became alive again to His goodness and aware of His presence, standing on the mountaintop, beholding His glory.

As expected, I couldn’t stay there. I’ve come back down into the valley of the ordinary and mundane. And honestly, I’m afraid I’ll drift back into the numbing kind of spirituality that lulls my soul back to sleep.

But I don’t want to surrender my holy zeal to the sneaky spread of complacency.

So how do I guard against it?

Life is chock-full of choices. No surprise there.

So I choose to fight for faith. Faith that God is as extraordinary as His word says He is. Faith that He is actively at work in the world and in me. Faith that I am His, and He is mine.

I choose to believe that He hears me when I cry to him. I choose to remember I don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. I choose to trust that he fights for me. I choose more of Him so that there can be less of me.

So the question is,

“To be or not to be?”

I choose to be.