Ye of little faith

I was doing some more thinking about the question of absolute faith. I can't get over the fact that we think we can run our lives better than our Creator can. And I'm not pointing the finger at others- I am constantly guilty of this attitude. What gives me the idea that I'll be happier living my life the way I want as opposed to how God wants? I actually doubt that God's way is the best way! He knit me together in my mother's womb-surely He wants only the best for me. But I find that most times what I think is best is far from what He thinks is best, and I'm appalling arrogant enough to choose my way over His. I don't think most people, myself included, quite get how monumentally insulting it is when we follow our will and not His. Would you actually walk up to God and sneer "Excuse me, but I think I know how to run my own life, thank you"? Of course not! But that's essentially what we're doing. I can't even express my own shame that I treat my Lord that way.

And you know what the worst of it is? He doesn't strike me dead! I doubt Him, and He is patient with me. I turn away from Him, and He brings me back. There is a beautiful verse in 2 Timothy that says " If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself." God cannot stop being God. He will ALWAYS be faithful. Why do I doubt that? Yet even one of his disciples doubted. Peter had enough faith to get out of the boat, but once out he focused on the storm instead of Jesus. How many times have I seen only the troubles of life and not the One who controls everything? Why have I taken my eyes off of Him? That's what Jesus asked Peter- "Oh you of little faith! Why did you doubt?"

My prayer is that I will no longer give in to my fear and doubts, that I will keep my eyes on the God of the Universe, who is so much bigger than any of the temporary storms that plague us in this life. I pray also that I will not be foolish enough to think that my will is better than His. I'll end with this verse of hope from Psalm 34:8-

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!"

Dying Every Day

One of my many frustrations in life stems from the undeniable fact that I am not perfect. It really, really bothers me that I'm not perfect. Not because I think that I am naturally without fault- my frustration lies in my inability to control my sinful nature. Somewhere in my life I developed the idea that I should be strong enough, wise enough, good enough, to not sin. Which is ridiculous, obviously, yet I still somehow think I should be able to resist sinning, if only I was determined enough. It's a pride thing.

I oftentimes feel like a fool, running to God, eager to repent and absolve myself of whatever sinful action or attitude I've given in to at the time, positive that I'll never fall prey to it again- only to find myself doing it again! But I prayed! I repented! I acknowledged my sin! How could I have gone back to it? Why did God ALLOW me to go back to it?

It finally occurred to me that holiness requires not just a one time death to self at the time of salvation- it requires daily death to self. I was foolishly assuming that by acknowledging my sin once, I could, of my own power, not fall into it again. Or that by giving my life over to God once I could sufficiently take it from there and live a holy life. WRONG. I have to daily die to my sinful nature. Sometimes twice a day! Galatians 5:24 says "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires." I must choose every morning to live not by my fallen human nature but by the Spirit, and willingly acknowledge and sacrifice the evil that lives in me EVERY DAY. I can't do it by myself. I must constantly fall upon our Saviour for grace and the strength to live by the Spirit, holy and pleasing to God.

SBS: Absolute Faith

Question of the week, brought to us by the esteemed Mr. J.P. Collins:

"Is it possible for us to have absolute faith? What can, or better yet should, we do to help us come as close as humanly possible to absolute faith? "


Most people would think of absolute faith as being the kind of faith that moves mountains, heals the sick, raises the dead, etc. And they're right-absolute faith is believing in the power of God to accomplish the impossible. I believe that as followers of Christ we are all capable of this tremendous faith, yet miracles like the ones I just mentioned are rarely, if ever, seen in our lifetime. Why? Because absolute faith must first be prefaced with absolute surrender.

Faith isn't just believing that God can move mountains or make a blind man see- it's also believing that He is fully in control of our lives, and trusting Him completely with them. If we won't fully sacrifice ourselves to His control, how can we have absolute faith in Him? Too many of us, myself included, don't relinquish every aspect of lives to Him-we hold things back, either to hide them or 'take care of them' by ourselves. We're afraid of what will happen when we take matters out of our own hands and give them to God. One of my favorite quotes by CS Lewis sums up our fear of surrender pretty well-“We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." Absolute surrender is scary! It means we are completely and blindly trusting God with our daily lives, and oftentimes He takes us out of our comfort zones to make us more like Him.

So in closing, I believe that we can only have absolute faith (or as close as a fallen human can get to it) when we have surrendered ourselves fully to Him-that is the biggest show of trust we have. And once we've trusted that He can accomplish the impossible in our hearts and lives, then we will truly have the faith in Him to move mountains.

SBS:The Good and the Bad of Moral Neutrality

In recent days I've come to belong to a circle of bloggers, demurely labeled the Secret Blog Society. Once a week someone poses a question that the other members must reply to on their respective blogs. It's all very exciting and exclusive. But anyways, this week's question had been posed and I must, in all my infinite wisdom, answer it.

The question is based on a quote by Matt Chandler and reads... "The majority of us lack depth in Christ, not because of bad/wicked things but rather, morally neutral things - things that scripture wouldn't outright call sinful, but we just have so much of them [the morally neutral things] in our lives that we've kind of drowned out the voice of G-d, drowned out time to be with Him, drowned out...[insert something you have drowned out]. So we just busy ourselves with morally neutral things and then we think we're DOING ALRIGHT, because we're not doing BAD."

So the question is- Can too much of a morally neutral thing be eternally bad; and are there morally neutral things in your personal life that Christ is asking you to get rid of, or remove - things he just wants out, even though there is nothing evil about it?

My answer is thus. ( I am on borrowed Internet time, so it shall be brief, but life changing)

Yes.

As Christians our highest calling is to be imitators of Christ. Not just believers, but imitators. We are urged to not merely have alright behavior, but blameless behavior. So if we are satisfied with living a merely alright Christian life then I'm afraid we've missed the point. Shouldn't it be our deepest desire to live a life that is pleasing to God? It's not that morally neutral things, like tv, video games, what have you, are bad-it's that they can keep us from living a Spirit filled life. They can distract us from our purpose, which is to serve Christ. When our lives are filled with seemingly innocuous activites, we risk losing that intimacy with Jesus. It's a sly trick of the Devil...his greatest victory comes not if we do something obviously evil, like commit murder or have affairs; it comes when we choose to spend our time watching tv instead of spending time in the Word. It's those small gradual shifts of focus from God to other things-that's where the danger lies. The morally ambiguous things in life become bad when they keep us from living life as imitators of Christ. We shouldn't be satisfied with 'just alright". We should strive to live holy lives, or we might find ourselves slowly falling away from God. CS Lewis hit the nail on the head when he wrote that "The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

I had a lot more to say but not enough time to say it. But maybe that's for the best. Whatev. Goodnight.

A brutal attack of poetry

As I am currently burdened with thoughts that I have no desire to share, I shall leave you only with a poem I wrote in AP English, where fun goes to die. Curse you, Hector!! Curse you!

"Trust or lack thereof"

Bullets!
On my paper
in the air
all around us
Can't escape the bullets!

Bunnies!
Fluffy tails
Floppy ears
Good to Eat!

Tangents!
Must go turn off the stove
Dinner is burned

Regurgitation!
What goes down comes up!
Icky icky icky
Dinner in the john

Poems!
Words that reveal
Nothing
Door to my soul
Is shut

The Beginning

Welcome to my blog. I decided that I wasn't pretentious enough and that the only obvious solution to this problem was to create an outlet through which I could grace the world with my thoughts and other various abominations (like my poetry). And when one has a blog, one joins the elite society of those whose opinions have been published, and in most cases read, thus making everything they say important and infallible. So now whenever I am arguing with someone, I need only raise my eyebrow, turn up my nose, and with all disdain possible ask "Yes, but do YOU have a blog?", instantly rendering their opinion null and void. It's going to be great. Stay tuned.