Trying to make sense of things

Sometimes I find myself lost and confused in a sea of information and data bytes that is the world we live in with its internet and exponential daily growth.  There is no way anyone can keep up with the amount of information that you are bombarded with every day, much less the amount of information that we are missing every day, which is gargantuan.  

Sometimes I feel like I'm searching for all this information, whilst in my peculiar daily philosophical meanderings that I call a search for truth and learning, even one small bit of this sea of information, and trying to grasp onto it, but once I grab hold there is the next monumentally crucial task of knowing what to do with it.  

And once I know what to do with it, there is the next painful task of knowing how it relates to the one I just got done with, and so on until there appears a shape through the fog that all this small bits often seem to be pointing to.  

Sometimes I can feel that I'm getting near some grand truth that signs and quotes and points are pointing me to, but I can never quite grab a hold of it and it slips through my fingers and out of sight, out of mind.  I have nothing much specific to say here, but it is an itch that constantly bugs me, that the scratches of reading and listening and discussing can never quite satisfy.  I guess our knowing is limited and that is that.  But how can we know our knowing is limited?  Maybe we can't, but that would seem to prove the statement anyway.  


Just some more random thoughts.



What the crap...

Past Few Years - Part 6 - My Wife

My series about reflecting on the past few years is dragging out a bit, but I didn't expect it to go by quickly. Perhaps it will be ongoing. It was supposed to be a methodical, deliberate way for me to recount on the most significant things that have happened in my life in recent years. And I tend to be slow in thought (deliberate as I like to say) so it is taking a while. Plus it's difficult to find enough time to actually be able to reflect and write about things since I'm so slow. But I wanted to provide a quick interim to write a little about the most important person in my life. This is supposed to be sort of the climax of my series here, since this is where much of what preceded culminates. But I feel anxious to get to the best part, so I will give a sneak peak if you will.

When I first started talking to Emily, I immediately was drawn to her beauty. Beauty not only outwardly (wow), but beauty inwardly and all around. She just exuded a sense of beauty; not only beauty but specifically purity. She carried herself with this air of goodness, like I knew and could tell just by being around her that God resided in her and she loved him with all her heart. This was not in arrogance or selfishness, but with confidence in who she was and a contentedness in her soul. It was as clear as day to notice it, yet I'm still mystified by it. I could instantly sense a difference between her and every girl I'd ever met, yet I could not put my finger quite on it.

Not to be overpoetic, as if all moments are dreamy with her, but all moments are real with her. She is practical, hardworking, and reliable. She is pleasant, hilarious, and a joy to be with. I don't deserve the love she has given me, and the willingness and desire she has to serve and minister to me. She is the sweetest blessing I have in my life. How many men could say they have a wife that wants to please them? I suspect this is a rarity in today's selfish and self-serving culture. "An excellent wife who can find?" She truly is far more precious than jewels. Not that I want jewels, but I suppose the point there for me is that she is worth far more than the ring I've given her. The ring is simply a symbol of her worth, yet she is worth far more.

Not only is she beautiful, but she is fun. She is my best friend, and I enjoy being with her more than anyone. She made me get on this slingshot thing at the State Fair that fires you up in the air with giant rubber bands and spins you around. If we would have died, we would have gone out together. It would have been a fun way to go out with her sitting next to me.

She knows Jesus better than I do, and she's been faithful to him better than I have. I know that before we met, she was being faithful to him and trusting him even in the hardest times of her life. She was patiently loving me before I even met her by guarding herself and entrusting her life to God and not to her feelings or her own selfish desires like so many of us, including me, do constantly.

I am a wretched dude. I don't deserve her. I don't deserve a wife or any blessings I have received. Too many times, I don't behave like I should or I turn from my responsibilities. But God has graced me in giving her to me because he has chose to do so in his love. God forbid I forget this fact that all of life is grace and that God is the giver of all things in Christ.

I pray that every man desiring a wife would have someone like my wife Emily. I pray that I would lead, serve and love her well her whole life. Far more to come. Thank you Jesus.

Past Few Years - Part 5 - Confession

As I've said before, I was raised in a Christian home. But there was one aspect of being "raised Christian" that I was not exposed to: youth group. A church youth group is one of the most common organization features within any church. (The only exception I know of is the peculiar group of "Family-Integrated Churches", which are quite stringent about having a church environment where all age groups are represented in a more family-based approach to church. I've only seen this model in really conservative, quasi-presbyterian/baptist churches. I actually agree with them a lot in principle, and I think that a church should be like one big family and we shouldn't always segregate people by age, but all church age groups can learn from other age groups much like a family can. Also implied in the whole idea of a youth group being treated primarily according to its age i.e. younger, and therefore much more immature, is the theory of "adolescence," which in these days of modern psychology is rarely questioned. There is a refutation of this entitled "the myth of adolescence," which is part of the book the Harris twins wrote called Do Hard Things (I wrote about it here)). My parents decided to leave the church I was raised in before I was old enough to experience any sort of community as a semi-adult in the youth group (that darn adolescence). Most, or all of what I know about church (college student ministry doesn't quite count), I know from when I was a child. I will admit, though I know my parents would probably lament this, that I feel like this has stunted me greatly not only in my experience in a church community, but also in my maturity as a Christian (the two, however, are undeniably related). I do not at all intend to say that this was my parents' intent, but rather think that it was the only thing they could have done given the situation and that our family was better off to no longer be a part of that church. The details aren't really important, but I will just say that the church eventually split because of some crazy political and leadership issues related to power-corruption and immaturity. That's what the body of Christ is all about right? It's ridiculously sad to think about.

What I want to say about it is that while it probably was best to leave that church, I still had a far way to go in terms of church community. I still do. I still struggle with being able to commit myself in service to a group of people in a church. I still feel unable to stay focused and keep plodding with people in my life. Contributing to this I think is my strong dependence on family. Maybe it's an idol for me. Deep inside me, at some point, was put the assumption that things will get done by someone else, that I don't have to take an active part in community, that someone will make that committment in my place. When I was a kid, it was my parents and my family that filled the need for community. These days things must be done by me or else nothing will ever happen. And this responsibility is not something I've felt super prepared for in my growing up. In almost every area of my life I have struggled with the idea of a personal responsibility on myself to make sure things are done the way they need to be, whether it be making friends, money management, morality, health, etc. There's some flaw deep inside me that wants so badly to be lazy and let other people take care of the things that are up to me. The responsibility of community is just one aspect of the deeper problem of what I believe is laziness in me.

But I think it's getting better. I know it's gotten better. But the first thing that occurred in me was to actually wake up to the real problem. I think this hit me like a ton of bricks when I got into college and started depending on myself instead of my parents. I got involved with the Wesley Foundation at Texas A&M, which was what I could call my "youth group replacement experience." This is not to say that it was equivalent to a youth group in that it was full of a bunch of silly kids, but more that almost everyone there did have that youth group experience that I missed and it was an obvious trait in them. So in many ways, it was sort of a culture shock to me. I had never experienced a community like that, especially how the Wesley Foundation there is, in which students hang out there all day, and sometimes all night. It was in many ways like a second home for me and many other college students, and some of the best times in my life occurred there. It was also the staging ground for much of my growing up and learning how to be a Christian. I was confronted with my own sin there, though much of it was more a result of just the college environment, and broken down to my confession of it. With this confrontation of my own sin of course led to being tempted precisely in my weakest areas, and let's just say I not only learned of my sin and confessed it, but I also gained the experience of anguishing it. As an understanding of the Law goes, and conversely the Gospel, the more one knows of one's own transgression of the Law, the more one want to transgress it. As Romans 7:7-15 says:

Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

As this says, it is not the commands of the law to blame as if they are intrinsically at fault, but simply to point out the great propensity of human beings to violate the statutes of the law based upon their knowledge and awareness of the law. Implied here is the truth that we have a sin nature in us from birth that is the default mode of the human heart, and the greater moral knowledge that is fed to it, the greater its potential violation. The problem when this enlightenment of the Law occurs in the Christian is a harsh confrontation with one's own total depravity and incapability to live in accordance with its commandments. True humility, I believe, is in part the ability to see oneself in the light, without personal biases towards the truth or falsehood of one's moral characteristics. It is seeing sin where there is sin, and virtue where there is virtue. It does not call pride a virtue, but rather a vice, much to the chagrin of the hardworking American who prides himself in, well--pride.

That's the gist of what I faced in college, in terms of sin realization, learning to confess it, and repent from it. But repentance is really its own entity. I believe confession without repentance is the definition of hypocrisy. More on this next...

Past Few Years - Part 4 - Predestination concluded

Perhaps that's enough on predestination. I'm reluctant to end my writing on it at this point though, because sometimes I feel like I've misrepresented it and reduced it down to merely its simplistic label. The vast amount of opinion on the subject is vehemently opposed to it, and foams at the mouth upon the hearing of the word. So I don't want to fall prey to this or give license to this oversimplified reaction to what I believe is among the most complex and beautiful, as well as misunderstood, concepts there is. If I've presented it at all in a simpleminded way, I apologize and perhaps the only reason I did so was for novelty, since I am aware of the great amount of emotional response attached to this subject that lends a lot to its attractiveness.

Past Few Years - Part 3 - Predestination cont'd

Here's what I meant, picking up from last time. I don't mean that everyone acknowledging Christ claims the label of Calvinist (obviously this is not true). There are reservations I have with taking the label as well, since it seems awfully focused on John Calvin, rather than on Jesus and the Scriptures. But my point is that every true Christian believes that God is sovereign over all, that it's Jesus and his power that saves us and it's not ourselves or our abilities that do so. Truly, this is the heart of what it means to be a Christian, to be humbled and ask for forgiveness of sins from God. However, it is my contention that Arminian theology does not hold to this, even though some claim it as their own that truly are Christians. A quote from Spurgeon, which is him caricaturing a prayer of an Arminian, illustrates this better than I can say:

"You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer—for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying, 'Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not—that is the difference between me and them.'" (taken from a sermon entitled Free Will--A Slave)

The underlying problem with the Arminian system (meaning that ultimately it is the choice of a fallen human to believe in Christ and be saved) is that in the end the Arminian believer must boast in himself for his salvation, rather than in Christ. The reason is that Armianism (as opposed to Calvinism) espouses a system of doctrine teaching that all humans are given the same amount of grace to believe (termed prevenient grace by John Wesley), and some choose to accept it to their salvation and some choose to reject it to their damnation. This inescapably makes the work of Jesus on the cross merely a powerful suggestion (if we can say it has power at all), rather than a great work of redemption. Now I will fully admit that few Arminians would claim that their salvation was of their own doing, but if questioned logically they are left with no other possible path to take. All Christians, when squeezed in the press of rational consistency, must reveal the pulp of Calvinism. The Christian heart is inevitably Calvinist, since our hope is not in our own abilities, but in the sovereign power of God. (I know some may take great issue with this, so I reiterate here the secondary importance of this doctrine in being a Christian, though as I have noted I believe Calvinists and Arminians would all agree on the main point of God's sovereignty here, despite the stark difference in label and professed doctrinal loyalty.)

Many of my friends that I met in college would hold to the teachings of John Wesley (inevitable since this was at the Wesley Foundation of the United Methodist Church) and those of Jacobus Arminius by association, since Wesley was an adherent to this system of theology. Also, for the person I was closest to in college (no names mentioned), this was a large source of our conflict and eventual falling out, so I am quite familiar with the sentiment of the debate's other side.

I am also familiar because I have often taken the Arminian side, and have switched between the two a few times, whether for emotional reasons or for what I perceived as biblical ones. I was raised in the free will side of the Baptist church and given pretty much the standard Arminian stance: Jesus died for all sin and we just have to accept it to be saved, or: God chose everyone, we just have to choose him back. When I was confronted with the concept of Calvinism, I wrestled for a good while with it, and eventually aligned with it. Upon interacting with others in debate over this, I was forced to evaluate harsher the claims of the predestination clan, and was convinced for a time that it was not biblical. This turning back was due mostly to the influence of these few things (listed with how they were corrected afterwards):

• The audio teaching of Dennis McCallum (from Xenos Church in Columbus, Ohio) on Romans 9. McCallum, whose teaching was invaluable to me in much of my understanding of the Gospel in college, interpreted this passage to mean that the Jews were chosen, as it were, to be the vessel by which all the nations of the Earth would be blessed, and not chosen in the sense that they received forgiveness of sin and salvation. This was very intruiging to me and convinced me for a time, but it simply did not hold up in the context of Romans (though this is what he claimed), and especially by the verses that follow which speak very clearly of salvation (10:1). The purpose of this text is to point out that Israel does not believe and has rejected its Messiah, and that God has now opened wide the door of his blessing and salvation for Gentiles. Indeed, Christ the Messiah is the very blessing which the witness of Abraham and Israel pointed to. This is the promise spoken in the old days of a blessing to the nations--Jesus.
  
  
• Appeals to emotion and personal reasoning. This is the argument used most of the time by those that despise predestination. Admittedly, it simply doesn't seem right when we think that God predestines some for salvation and leaves the rest to their own devices. It also seems to violate the principle we call "free will." While I do agree with the notion of the free will of man, I also think that the majority's conception of it is critically erroneous. I believe that we have a choice to obey God or not, and the decisions we make everyday can be made either way. But I also believe that man's "free" will (which is a bestowal on us from God's perfect creation) has been indeterminably bent towards sin. We are forever free to sin and to will our own defiance from God. We are not free, however, to turn our hearts to the Lord on our own power, since we are endowed with the curse of Adam from birth. We can do the right thing from time to time, but we can never please God with the filthy rags of our righteous deeds (Isa. 64:6). We need the impartation of God's Spirit to us, a regenerated heart to be able to willfully love him, and a new nature to turn from sin and obey Jesus. And it's only by God's free action to give us these gifts and enable us to have faith in him again. In other words, our wills are in bondage, as Luther would say. Think of it this way: Adam's initial standing with God was perfect because God made it to be that way. Adam chose to sin against God by a free action. But Adam could not right the wrong he did through any amount of "free" action unless God came looking for him and granted him forgiveness (which he did), eventually by providing the ultimate sacrifice in Christ. The restoration of their relationship was made only by God in dying for the sin Adam committed, since it is by definition a divine act to forgive and redeem.
  
  
• My Methodist surroundings. I was surrounded by Methodists, 99.9% of which were Arminians. This isn't meant to be denigration since I have so much to owe to the environment I was placed in at Texas A&M, but merely an account of its truth. The environment you find yourself in is a big influence on the beliefs you lean towards. If you took a Methodist and put them in the opposite situation (perhaps in a PCA Church), I would bet that they would struggle with predestination also. Seeing people you love have different beliefs, and the character and integrity you see them draw from those beliefs is a strong witness to their veracity. Some of the strongest and most devout people I know are Methodists. I love my Methodist friends and I am indebted to the fellowship I have had with them (heck, my wife grew up Methodist), but I just simply disagree with a significant chunk of the doctrine. I just don't see it in the Bible. Much of this disagreement has nothing to do with predestination mind you, but is more along the lines of church practice. A lot of it has to do with the view of women in ministry (more on this later), as well as some of its practical stances on Scripture, homosexuality, etc. On the whole though, I see them as brothers and I would never separate myself from fellowship with them unless a bigger issue arose.
  
  

In the midst of struggling so much with all of this and leaning one way or the other, I discovered a preacher that would shape me the most in my life and my understanding of Christian truth. Not by a long shot does this only apply to predestination, but to a large degree its truth was solidified in my heart through the preaching of Mark Driscoll. Odd as it may seem, since he's been known by some sketchy identities (the Cussing Pastor, for one, as labeled by Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz), but I was moved by his passion for the Scripture and for the Reformed faith, while maintaining his real personality. As he would say, he's a "boxer-wearing Calvinist (not briefs)." In some ways I feel like I've been swept up in the new wave of Calvinism among younger people, which is weird to say. Something about it appeals to white guys in their 20s. I'm not sure what. I think a lot of it has something to do with the whole emerging thing, with the younger generation wanting something new and different from Christianity and the church than the older traditional approach. Like any division, people go to the left (Emergent) and to the right (Calvinism), though I think the orthodox thrust of it is somewhere in the middle. Driscoll's theological push is for the church and its members to view themselves as missionaries in the culture, much like an overseas missionary would in a different nation. The goal is the same: to win people to Christ and disciple them. This is the historical view of the church. The Emergent side would claim something similar, to love people where they are and in the culture they inhabit, but they simply reject the foundation of historical Christian truth and seek to forge new territory.

But this is getting far off topic, so I will end this post here and continue later...

Past Few Years - Part 2 - Predestination

Reader beware: a post about predestination is required to be really long, so I have broken this one into two (but maybe three or four) sub-posts, if you will.

Perhaps the most challenging question, both theologically and personally, I've ever faced, and one I know has puzzled more than a few people, is that of predestination. It's a subject that is tackled by philosophers as well as theologians and laymen everywhere, and one that has caused so much discussion, debate, and even animosity that few topics can rival it. Everyone breathing has an opinion on it, and many that take a side can be fairly opinionated about it, even rabid in some cases. Well, I've been known to be fairly opinionated and on this topic also, and perhaps even rabid at times. The funny thing is, I've been on both sides of it a few times. I've gone back and forth over this question as my understandings of the Bible, of church history, and of theology have grown and changed.

My encounter with this most difficult of doctrines was not isolated in my study and was never a simple question, but rather has been and continues to be perhaps the broadest and most encompassing of all mysteries of the Christian truth (at least for me). If understood correctly (as I think that I at least have done in part), it cuts straight to the heart of Christianity and into the nature of who God is. Though this was my first genuinely conscious exposure to the idea of God's absolute sovereignty in all things (election/predestination) and its personal relation to myself occurred at a specific time in college, it was merely part of a much broader, larger shift that took place in all of my thinking and in my heart as to the nature and character of God.

To start, my conceptions of God when I began college were insufficient at best, and injurious at worst. Not only was my faith under a time of testing during this period (see Part 1), what was already established in my beliefs was sorely deficient. My idea of God was someone who hated when you drank alcohol and would hurt you somehow if you did. Also, he hated gay people and was just waiting to unleash hell on them. These, I'm afraid, have been the predominant erroneous convictions of conservative evangelicals growing up, especially Southern Baptists (of which I grew up as). (Note: I do still believe that God will let no sin go unpunished, since he is fully just and no one who is identified as an idolater, adulterer, homosexual, drunkard, thief, or whatever will inherit the kingdom of God but rather those that have been washed from these [since we have all broken the whole law by the guilt of only one violation of it - James 2:10] and given new identity in Christ [as in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11]).

Not that these are completely without truth, for surely those that abuse alcohol and sexuality will be held accountable, but this is simply a gross understatement of what God is about. God is not primarily the moral police. This belief is a seriously tragic oversight from the beauty and mystery of the eternal God. It is apparently the same pit the Pharisees of Jesus' day were infamous for falling into--Legalism. Legalism is an attempt to justify oneself apart from God's grace, to any degree I believe. If you think about it, we do it all the time. Every time you say, "well that person is not as good as me because I tithe, or I don't drink, or I pray 3 times a day and he only does 2 times a day, or I have a quiet time," it is so often based upon a legalistic attitude. One problem with this is that it ignores God's grace to me in allowing me to have anything. All are allocated different measures of grace and expected to be faithful with them in whatever amount they are given (Mt. 20:1-16). Another problem is that it ignores the utter falsehood in assuming that we are good merely because of what we do or don't do, and in doing so inevitably leaves the state and motive of the heart out of the question.

This is the jist of what I came to think about God, mainly because I wasn't thinking about him or reading anything. I just assumed that I had him all wrapped up in my little brain and knew what he expected from me (which wasn't much). Further, I wasn't even able to live up to my own standards of what I thought God demanded and all the more I became greatly remorseful over my shortcomings upon learning that what he demanded was nothing short of perfection (Mt. 5:48).

My first serious consideration of the concept of election/predestination was through my brother Tim and a sermon he gave me to read by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Election". Prior to this, I had heard the word predestination before, but it was always in the contextual assumption that this was a crazy notion and that certainly my Bible did not teach this, despite the fact that the word "predestine" was in there numerous times in several different forms. This sermon made me actually realize that if it is true that there even exists this word in Scripture, then there certainly must be some sort of predestination of something. Spurgeon's words spoke so clearly about what the Bible said that it was startling to me. It was startling because so few preachers actually teach in a plain way so as to just let the Bible speak for itself (that is, expositionally) instead of contorting it to say what they want it to say, injecting sarcasm and disdain for those that may disagree, and not facing the honest, immediate problems and questions that surface when the text is read. Instead, the assumption is made about the text, that it is truly and faithfully understood, before it is taught for reasons such as not wanting to ask honest questions, wanting to please the congregation, or wanting to appear as an expert before people (I would imagine at least).

The same felt true from some of the people I know that didn't seem to take the honest questions seriously. Pat answers were common. To their credit, I do believe that they are convinced in their own minds of their beliefs and that on the whole, the "free will camp" falls under the realm of Christian fellowship, and I would never "major on this minor." But, I would like to try and maintain that this question of predestination really does cut to the heart of the mysteries of God's grace. Believing it doesn't change our ability to be Christians, but it can reveal a lot about God and make a lot of sense out of the world, as well as drastically change how we worship and view him. For me, pat answers are simply not enough to explain Scriptures like Romans 9 and Ephesians 1-2, of which first impressions can leave the reader grasping at straws when based on Arminian assumptions. There is also the question of suffering: is God really in control of it or is he just powerless to do anything about it? I have yet to hear an Arminian argument about suffering that is sufficient without making God merely an old man in the sky with his fingers crossed (this essentially amounts to open theism or process theology if taken to its logical conclusions).

The central issue that seemed to bug me constantly through this is really the age-old question of who God is. The choice of what to believe here about the nature of God and how to behave accordingly is the crux of the entire human dilemma, and I would submit that all error and sin falls under this heading. I want to be my own god and not let him be God. It's the first mistake of mankind and has been ever since. As Martin Luther put long ago, the breaking of any of the ten commandments, indeed any sin or violation of the Law, is really just the infraction of the first two: to worship God alone and not idols. Furthermore, and getting back to my main point, I would submit that everyone that really believes in Christ and trusts God with their lives, truly are what we can call--Calvinists. Wow, that should cause a stir! More on this in the next post...

Past Few Years - Part 1 - Starting College

I was raised in a Christian home and my parents are the most faithful and trustworthy people I know. I professed my sins at an early age (7-10?) and I know at that time that I understood the Gospel: that I was a sinner and that only Jesus’ payment on the cross in my place was sufficient to “wash away my sins,” and “make me white as snow,” acceptable to God, and take me to heaven. I remember singing that song with my mom when I was very young. I also remember attempting to witness to one of my Mormon friends when I was in 2^nd or 3^rd grade, and realizing that he just didn’t understand what I was talking about. I remember quoting Romans 6:23 to him: that he would die for his sins and without hope if he didn’t have Christ. I remember feeling genuine sadness that he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying about Jesus. I know I was a Christian at this point and that God had completely changed where I was headed in my life through the love and security of my parents.

But the worldview I developed, almost upon stepping into my dorm room into a new universe was without the security and the easy answers to life’s hardest questions I knew back in my parents’ home. Actually the first encounter I can remember with skepticism (which was what I faced in college) was in high school at a book store with my mom. She was looking for a book in the Christian section, so I browsed with her. I came across a book that suggested something about the question of how we know the Bible is true (I can’t remember exactly what it was). I remember being dumbfounded at the notion of questioning the Bible’s veracity, so I immediately began to grasp at straws as to why I believed it. But I came up with next to nothing. In a conversation with my mom at that bookstore, she came near tears when I bluntly asked her “how DO we know the Bible is God’s word?” I guess the shock of her discovering that I didn’t know combined with my shock at the same was hard to swallow. I remember being terrified inside as to the implications of my inability to answer this question. Was everything I said believed a sham? Was I just adopting my parent’s beliefs? Was the Bible the word of God or just an old book?

Later, in college, I would write an essay titled: “Why Do You Believe the Bible?” I sent it out to almost everyone I had the email address of, which in hindsight probably made me the weirdest person some of these people knew. Some of the email addresses I stole off of another guy’s email list in college. So I didn’t even know a large chunk of the people I was sending this out to, and I even gave credit to him as the one who provided the email addresses. I think I was just starting to really use email to communicate with friends, so I didn’t realize how weird it would be to do this. Plus, my first line in the email was: “DON’T DELETE BEFORE READING ALL OF IT”. As I was informed later by the email list guy, this looked very much like a chain letter, though I had never even heard of such a thing. So basically I was a complete idiot. But I sent it out with pride in what I wrote, hoping that it would mean something to them or make someone think. For the most part, as far as content, it was a good paper and reflected the study and research of the Bible I had done on my own time and found to be compelling. The paper itself, however, was shaky in structure, awkward in phrasing, disjointed, unclear, oversimplified, bigoted, judgmental, and expressed well my inability to coherently write (some may ask what has changed since then). But it was sort of my baby (though only 6 pages long) and reflected the immense amount of change I experienced in the first few semesters of my college experience. I had learned a great deal in the field of apologetics without me even knowing the term. And eventually, I had some college papers under my belt that helped my writing style quite a bit.

How I got to that point was a hard road, and lasted about a year (since I emailed the paper around October 2003 and started college September 2002), which actually isn’t that long but it felt much longer. Much of this time was spent alone, since I had a lot of trouble making friends in college, especially during the first semester where I generally didn’t hang out with anyone. I stayed in on the weekends and tried to find any excuse I could to go back home. My first roommate was a 5^th year senior, and was basically the party animal and social king of the dorm (Walton!). I was also noticeably awkward in almost every interaction with him and everyone else in the dorm. Later in the year though, we were decent friends and got along pretty well. But I owe a lot to the influence that my friends in the Wesley Foundation had on me in shaping my spirituality and grounding me in fellowship and support, even if I had some significant disagreements with some of the teachings of Methodism, what with developing Calvinist tendencies and all (perhaps later on this one). That sort of sounds like developing homosexual tendencies. Ha, funny. Anyway, having the Christian surroundings and environment brought to the fore the importance of knowing what I believed and why, especially being in theological disagreement as I was. It helped me face head-on the doubts and questions I had about scripture and Christianity, and forced me to open up the Bible, read books, listen to teachers, and find answers.

Some of the most compelling of arguments for the Bible’s truth for me were those of a more traditional, evidential approach, a la Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel type thinkers that argue for the evidence of Christianity, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and biblical inerrancy. McDowell’s The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (that my mom bought me in high school) was an instrumental guide in helping me discover the Bible’s amazing historicity and accuracy, as well as prophetical consistency and fulfillment. For example, one of the strongest points I ever read was concerning a prophecy in the book of Daniel (9:24-26) which predicts the exact time period, maybe even the exact day, of Jesus the Messiah, the King’s arrival into Jerusalem riding on a donkey’s back in 33 A.D. (Zech. 9:9), his subsequent execution, and the destruction of the temple following. (A recap of this is provided by someone here).

Many more things like this contributed to my increase of faith in the scriptures. Another greatly beneficial experience was listening to an open-air preacher named Tom Short speak on the campus square about Jesus and Christianity at Texas A&M (which was quite controversial I might add, but he was simply a good apologetic evangelist). Some trails I followed, however, seemed great on the front end, but ended up being kind of silly and unfounded, such as the Bible code theory.

All in all, this was one of the most important and shaping times in my life, and I can only credit God in doing a great work on my heart and mind in my first couple of years of college. At this point, I still had many, many problems and shortcomings such as arrogance, close-mindedness, and pride; but it also included times of great humbling and learning about the Bible, which I know have been crucial in my understanding of Jesus and his mercy to me as a sinner. I was also still (perhaps even more) confused as to what it actually meant to be a Christian, to repent from sin, and to walk with God daily (I still do; who doesn’t?). I came to realize just how hard this actually was since I was now responsible for myself in a way that you can’t understand when you’re living with your parents.

That is what college was to me: a great awakening. It was coming to understand that I am to be a man now. No more games. I needed to put away my childishness and move on to maturity. As I was to learn more about later, actually being a man of God and loving Christ was much more than I thought I was bargaining for in these first few years. But I’ll save that for later post(s). Peace out.

Reflection on the Past Few Years - Introduction

I don’t know about you, but I’ve gone through a lot of stages in my life where my beliefs have taken dramatic changes in course. By changes in belief, I mean significant adjustments in thinking and/or behavior as they relate to God, religion, and spirituality. These changes are acquired largely through interaction with others within the context of the church and, perhaps more significantly, through personal study, solitude, struggle, and sin where much of the real meat of life resides, waiting to be experienced. What I mean is that for me, while much of these “changes” were induced by contact with other Christians and personal relationships, so much of my own spiritual direction has taken its cues from great amounts of time spent alone, in prayer or in thought; or, as I have come to discover about myself, from my own sins and immaturity. I mean to discuss those changes which were beneficial, but also those that were detrimental. A lot of the changes have often been fueled by pride or by critique of others. The most significant changes, however, have been for the better and in the direction of growth.

The times of immaturity (which I still go through all the time) are laced with pride and idealism, and are greatly characterized by some serious plank-speck problems. This is where I criticize others and point out the flaws I see (probably most of which are good observations), but in doing so I overlook my own defects (which are legion) and downplay them by pointing out the admittedly more glaring (or at least more public) errors and sins of others. I don’t know how common this is with others, but I feel like it’s a constant struggle to not fall into this trap of hypocrisy. I feel I am getting better at it, or at least I am becoming more aware of it, which I hope is a step in the right direction in terms of growing and eventually weeding out the pride.

Usually when this happens (the weeding that is), I notice more growth in maturity and in holiness. For one, as of late, I have vastly reduced the anger I experience in the car, or at least I have learned how to control it better. I drive slower (which also helps with gas mileage I might add) and am more content with not getting somewhere as fast. I, along with my culture, am obsessed with getting places faster and jamming more things into the day at lower quality than if I just paced myself and accomplished tasks at a higher quality. But I’ve learned to accept the plight of transportation in Houston, TX a little better and am not in such a rush all the time. Lest I become prideful about my humble patience, I will stop here and merely say that there have been a number of significant times where I have noticed growth like this.

In some of my following posts, I would just like to chronicle them in some way so as to perhaps provide a little perspective for myself and where I am headed, and maybe help someone to know me a little better. Much of my experiences in the past few years (generally starting around my time in college) have shaped me into who I am today, which I know is far advanced from where I started. I would just like to try and trace this path the best I can, and perhaps spur myself on into more growth as I reflect on my past. This is really more like my own personal journal of belief, so in some ways this is purely a practice in spiritual matters and not so much something I really need to share with others, but I don’t have too much reservation spilling some of this so I will broadcast it without hesitation. And just maybe it might resonate with some and cause something good to come.