[+/-] The New holiness (50% Less Genocide)

First: Les Miserables is an awesome, awesome book. Verily, it doth rock mine socks.

On a different note: Recently I've been exposed to another unfamiliar viewpoint. Not unheardof, but forgotten, dismissed, pushed to the back of my mind. It centers around 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

I'd nearly forgotten about this idea of separateness. I guess I've interpreted it (like a true disciple of Donald Miller) to mean doing everything that non-Christians do - with the exception of illegal or immoral things - and showing your differentness through acceptance and love.
What does it really mean to be separate? For Old Testament Jews, it meant following strict rules and slaughtering any heathen tribes who might corrupt them. (Question of the day: Would the God of the Old Testament approve of modern oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli Government? Follow-up question(s) of the day: What, then, should be my position on this oppression, as a servant of this God? Or has my God really changed that much?)
For New Testament Christians, separation meant... um, not too sure. Somehow that's always a tricky one. (Tangent Alert!) We all like to think we know how they did church back then (or at least that our pastor or our church does, and that we're a bang-on biblical 1st century assembly) but when I read my Bible it looks pretty sketchy. I just don't think we have enough information to act high and mighty about being right or being "associated with those who believe in following all of Christ's commands" as (roughly quoted) some guy I didn't know in some magazine I forget said recently. For myself, I haven't yet encountered a group of Christians whom I would consider obedient enough to the letter of the New Testament "law" to be able to pick the grit out of their brother's eyes. That's all I intend to say on the matter. (End Tangent.)
Since I find understanding of New Testament church practices to be strangely elusive, let's focus on Jesus. (I use a lot of brackets, don't I? This one's about a couple of cool web sites for Bible research. If you don't care, skip it. If you know of other good'uns, let me know. Anyway, there's a good online concordance to be found at http://www.gospelcom.net/narramore/concordance.htm. So much easier than sitting there with my NIV and a KJV and a Strongs and flipping back and forth. While I'm at it - and if you happen to like the KJV/Strongs thing, go to www.e-sword.net, where you can download a Bible in several versions (including original languages, excluding (tragically) the NIV). The coolest of these is the KJV with Strongs notes, which makes concordanizing quite easy. You can also download centuries-old commentaries etc., and apparently there's a version for your Pocket PC. So there ya go. Back to Jesus.)
I like wondering about Jesus, what he'd really be like if we could strip away all the translation and culture gap and conventional thinking that gets in the way of the message. What would it be like to go to church with Jesus, or have a meal with Jesus, or wait for a bus with Jesus? Think about that - "What Would Jesus Do" in 5 minutes while waiting for a bus with me? Would he just stand there? Would he smile, say "How's it going?" (Would he say it like he meant it - like a real and honest question?) Would he tell me I was a sinner and needed to repent? (Maybe not, but John the Baptist probably would. I say this because I don't really like this approach, but if Johnny did it, it must be valid. I guess.) I wonder if Jesus was a good conversationalist, if he could really communicate his care for you, his interest in your life. I wonder if he really took advantage of his God thing, like pulling the "you've had 5 husbands" trick on everyone. I wonder how much he was into the "messianic secret" thing, just wandering around, looking like anyone else, getting rocks in his shoes and having birds poop in his hair. What would happen if Jesus preached at my church, and we didn't know it was him? Would we like what he'd say? Would we disagree? I can't answer these questions, but they're fun to think about.
Man, I'm having a heck of a time staying on topic. What I'm slowly getting around to is that Jesus was a bit of a partier. He went to an (apparently) week-long wedding party, involving copious amounts of alcohol, and when the booze ran out, Jesus Christ bought the next round. Jesus hung out with extortionists and prostitutes. He often showed a disregard - even a disinterest - for The Official Rules For Being Good. I do not believe that Jesus would condemn modern Christians for social drinking, movie-going, or associating with immoral people. Christianity is not about rules, particularly rules of avoidance - the Don't Smokes and Don't Drinks and Don't Read Harry Potters that so many of us focus on. (Myself included.)
However...
There is this idea of separateness. Holiness apparently means specialness, differentness. What does that mean for us? For me?
Big question. I can't answer that here. But I know there are things in my life that aren't honoring to God. I've known this for a long time, long enough that I've almost forgotten. I've grown accustomed to compromise. How long ago was it that I first watched a movie and though "this is wrong, it's bad for me. I shouldn't be watching this" and then ignored that and kept watching? I don't want to ask "what kind of movies are appropriate for a Christian to watch" because I think that's a personal thing. Well, no, I guess I am sort of asking that. I'm just not expecting us to all agree on the answer.
So what should I be doing as a Christian to be "separate"? Not going to bars? I don't think that's it. If we take Jesus for our example, the idea is not to avoid the people or places that might "corrupt" us, but to simply not be corrupted by it. It's important, however, to note that we can't all do what Jesus did. Jesus hung out with prostitutes - not all Christian guys could handle that. More on that later, maybe. I think it's our responsibility - and the responsibility of our brothers - to know and be honest about what we can and can't handle, and avoid situations that we know will be too much for us. So if we are confident that a certain situation - say, going to a bar - will not cause us to be tempted to get sin, (in this case, get drunk) how do we know whether this situation is one where we're called to be separate?
Maybe I should elaborate. What I'm talking about here is separateness for the sake of (can I say this?) appearances. There's the idea of not causing your weaker brother to stumble - so if you're going to the bar, don't invite a guy who's a recovering alcoholic - but the idea I'm thinking of is separateness as (this sounds wrong to me) evangelism. I'm starting to doubt myself here. Is this legitimate? I'm having a hard time articulating it in a way that I like. Is there a place for saying "I'm not going to do this simply because I'm supposed to stand out as a Christian?" Maybe not. This sounds like legalism to me, or more specifically, Phariseeism: seeking holiness through avoiding evil, or more often, avoiding the appearance of evil. Incidentally, what does the Bible say about avoiding the appearance of evil? Depends on which version you read. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 reads "Abstain from all appearance of evil" in the KJV, but in the NIV it simply says "Avoid every kind of evil." How interesting. My personal Greek expert tells me "appearance" and "kinds" are both implied by the Greek word "eidos". So I guess the idea is there, sort of. I'd like to find other verses that speak on this subject. ("This subject" being, I suppose, when and how we should be concerned with looking righteous.)
Lets talk about prostitutes. I saw a play once in which a guy met a prostitute, became her friend, and eventually "redeemed" and married her. I thought that was beautiful, but then I thought about what it would be like if that really happened. What would people think if they found out I associated with a prostitute whom I'd met walking the streets, that I even paid to spend time with her. I'd say it was all ok, we just talked. I enjoyed her company and I wanted to help her. Maybe I loved her. Aside from disapproving of our potential romance, what would you say? What would you think? Maybe you'd believe me, trusting my integrity in spite of suspicious circumstances. If this was the case, what would you say? Would you try to dissuade me from further contact? Even if I could convince you that I wasn't in danger of corruption and that I believed that it was right for me to do this, would it make you uncomfortable? If not you, I think at least some people would feel this way. Surely some people would disbelieve me altogether. What would this do to my reputation? My "witness"?
You know what? Forget that. Who the crap cares? Jesus (as I believe I've already said) hung out with prostitutes. He cared for them. He didn't care what other people thought of him. He didn't weight the pros and cons or assess the risk of compassion. He also spoke his mind and challenged the religious elite when they were in the wrong. Of course, he did get killed for that, but that's the way it goes sometimes when your real with people and you ignore "The Rules".
So were are we? What are the legitimate reasons for and methods of separateness? Recap time:
- Both the Old and New Testaments speak of "separateness" from the ungodly world.
- It seems to me that this is referring primarily to the avoidance of sin.
- "Everything is permissible for me" - but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me" - but I will not be mastered by anything
- We should be mindful of the effect our actions have on those around us and care more about their well-being than our own pleasure. We probably don't put enough emphasis on not causing our brother to stumble.
- It is my belief that looking righteous should not be a big deal to us. We should not purposefully do things which would damage our reputations, but neither should we hesitate to do what's right for the sake of appearances. (Maybe this doesn't come up very often. I'm just thinking Jesus hanging out with sinners.)
That's what I've come up with, as of the time of this posting. Sorry for taking so long, I've been working on this off and on for several days. You may have noticed that my viewpoint changed more than once while writing. I am by no means done thinking about this. As always, I welcome your opinions.

Once more: Les Miserables. So hot right now.

[+/-] Dufflepud Theology

I was happy this week. It's been a while. It was Senior Co-ed Camp, I was an "Assistant Director" (part choreboy, part deadweight) and my director was a dude. In terms of fun this was maybe the best week of camp ever.

I started reading Les Misrables again this week (I'd gotten about 800 pages into it before going off to camp) and it's awesome. Hugo says these amazing things that just stop me short. Here's the latest: there's a revolution starting up and these people steal an Omnibus (some sort of carriage, I suppose) to barricade a street, and they let the horses go. Later on, another guy finds the horses wandering the streets, and Hugo mentions how they "no more understand the ways of man than man understands the ways of providence." I started thinking about how interesting that is if you turn it around.

A horse only knows about eating and pulling his cart. Suddenly crazy things start happening, his carts gone and he's wandering in the streets. He's trying to make sense of this in terms of work and food but it's just not adding up. He can't possibly understand why some person would want to take his cart, or this strange concept of a barricade. Then there's the whole idea of warfare - human beings acting violently towards one another, not to mention ideologies, governments, social structures, philosophies, nations and patriotism, freedom, honor and glory, and so on. There are so many levels here that are hopelessly beyond his understanding, all he knows is that something is very wrong in terms of work and food.

What if that's the way things are with God? I mean, I know all about the sheep analogy and how God's ways and thoughts are higher than mine and all this, but I tend not to think of it very much. I guess I act like God is just a little bit smarter than me, like some really brilliant person, maybe a nuclear physicist. I feel like God knows things I don't know, but only because he's smart and can see everything everywhere through all time.

But then I started to wonder if it wasn't deeper than that - not that God has reasons that are hidden from me, but that God has reasons that I could never understand. God (if you're a literalist or whatever) wrote the Bible to tell me about himself and his plan, but how dumbed down and anthropomorphized and incomplete is it? Maybe God's got stuff going on - I mean stuff like values and logic - that is totally beyond our comprehension. I've always sort of looked at the word of God as being along the lines of Nuclear Physics for Dummies, but maybe it's more like Revolution for Horses.

[+/-] Reflections of a Humble Melancholic

First off, I recently realized that you guys can send me email at psalm13@hotmail.com. The problem is that I never check that account because it got tons of junkmail and no real mail. So I've now opened it back up, just in case anyone ever wanted to email me there, but if you've done so before, I haven't received it. I'm not snubbing you, I just never received it. My apologies.

There's so much in my brain that I want to get across to you in a somewhat coherent manner, and I'm off to a bad start. I think what I'm going to do is throw out a bunch of the random thoughts and events that have acquired recognition as "significant" to me recently. It may seem disjointed, but I want to try to let you see some of the influences on my thinking, so that maybe you can understand my conclusions. Here goes.

So this week I was a chore boy at Ye Old Conservative Bible Camp's family camp. They had this preacher in who was pretty good - knew his Bible well, spoke well and could pull together a lot of interesting stuff. His style was to take a word or a phrase or whatever and preach on it for a half hour - the meanings of the Hebrew words, the structure of the passage and how it relates to other passages, and analysis of the people and their overall attitudes and problems and so forth. Sometimes I thought he pushed his interpretation of someone's character a little far, particularly when it was based on one phrase thrown in as an aside to the main story. The thing was, this guy was a literalist - he believed that every word in his Bible was carefully chosen by God and (with the exception of those passages that are blatantly figurative) meant to be taken literally. It was hard for me to even wrap my brain around this - that intelligent people can hold these kind of views. I feel this way about a lot of stuff, and I suspect it's less to do with everyone who thinks differently than me being stupid than it is me being generally surrounded by people who think basically the same way I do. When all you interact with are like-minded people, all you hear are your own opinions. Opposing viewpoints need not even be considered because there's no one there to advance them. So naturally (being lazy) we assume that these other views are illogical/weird/evil, even if we're not trying to be narrow-minded to begin with. Anyway, that's why I love talking to people who have all kinds of different beliefs and mindsets.

I reread Blue Like Jazz this past week. One of the things that really stood out to me is when Donald Miller talks about a man who ran a bed and breakfast, and who was to him a vivid picture of selflessness. He asked this man how he puts up with people, and the reply was something like "If we're not willing to wake up each morning and die to ourselves, maybe we should ask ourselves if we're truly following Christ." I thought this was incredible - this idea of waking up every morning and dying to yourself, reminding yourself that you're only purpose as a follower of Christ is to love other people.

A couple weeks ago I was sitting around at another camp, talking to a girl I know. She was asking where I was at, and I said that I'd sort of decided that I need to do the things I'm supposed to do and try to just be a good Christian and love God and others and all that, even though I didn't really want to and it's never really worked in the past and I still have all my doubts. I said that I'd come to realize that I can't be a special needs Christian, I need to just suck it up and obey. She said that sounded a lot like what I'd decided a few months ago. This caught me off guard, but thinking back, I decided she's probably right. Every few weeks or months I come to the point where I say "Oh look, I'm being dumb. I should really just stop struggling against God and start obeying, even though I don't get it." And then I try to do this but it never really works out.

I was talking with another friend recently about how being a Chore Boy is really cushy. Yes, I have to do some gross stuff (women's bathrooms), but I really only work 4 or 5 hours a day. The rest of the time I can sit around and read or talk to the preacher or sleep or whatever. He said other people might include time spent hanging out with kids and forming relationships as work time. I said "Oh ya, I don't really do that. Y'know, it really frees up a lot of time when you realize you're the only one that matters." I was half joking, but I felt pretty convicted about it. As much as I talk about trying to really love others, I spent 98% of my time thinking about myself and doing things to please myself. The crazy thing is that I'd talked to this same guy just a few days earlier about how I'd realized that I'm basically only happy when I'm serving other people. And it's true: when I think about myself, I'm depressed, but when I think about other people or get a chance to help them it makes me feel good, as if I'm not totally wasting my life. People are always apologetic about needing help and they usually want to repay you somehow. I want to say "No, there's nothing to repay. The best thing you ever did for me was to need me just now, and to accept my help." What I'm saying is that even after realizing that caring for others, not myself, makes me happy, I've still failed miserably to really care about others. Isn't that amazing?

Sometime over the past year I realized that I had no reason to think that God's ever answered my prayers. Maybe I've told you before that the only prayers I've ever seemed to get answers to are the ones about becoming a better person. For example, I'd pray that God would help me with my anger or pride or whatever, and I'd work hard at it, and a couple months later I can see the difference. So then the question is did God really help me or did I just do it myself? Impossible to know, but it seems to me that I do better when I pray about stuff than when I don't. Ok, but that doesn't necessarily mean God's helping me - it could be just the psychological benefit of thinking he's helping me that really helps. When I was young and scared of monsters in the night I would do two things: pray, and hug my teddy bear. The bear certainly helped, though only because of a silly psychological trick that allows me to be comforted and encouraged if only I think I am. To be fair then, we need to take the same consideration for prayer, subtracting from the overall benefits of prayer the benefits of a cheap psychological trick. When we do this, is anything left to be attributed to the intervention of God? (I know, I'm treating abstract metaphysical whatever like a mathematical equation, and this is probably pretty shakey logic, but I'm just saying this is the way I've been thinking.) I was thinking about what really happens when we pray (also kind of dumb - how could I know?) and I'd pretty much decided that God usually doesn't do anything when we pray, but he tells us to pray because:
1) It reminds us that God's up there and he loves us.
2) Praying for other people reminds us of their significance, prompts us to think more about them than we might otherwise, and might even cause us to care for them in practical ways (which probably does them more good than any amount of prayer).
3) psychologically, if we think God's listening to us and will help us in some weird, mystical way, this belief in it's self will be helpful. This is probably the only real help that comes from prayer, under normal circumstances.
(Note: I've always believed that God can and does answer prayers in practical and even miraculous ways. He just never seemed to do this around me. Furthermore, I wouldn't insist that God does not answer my prayers in mysterious, intangible ways, but only that if he does, it's all very... Mysterious and intangible. Which is hard on my faith.)
The problem is that if you believe point 3 to be true it totally undermines the effectiveness of point 3, making prayer basically worthless. Or rather, of no discernible value to me, (it's all about me, you see) and therefore unappealing. Yes, points 1 and 2 are still valid, and so is all that stuff in the "note", but none of that stuff is particularly attractive. What all this means is that I'm disgustingly skeptical and I end up not praying much, and when I do pray it's with this weird attitude of smirking cynicism, as if I'm saying to God "You and me know that this is all nonsense, but I'll play along. See how gracious I am; how good at following your rules, even though they're dumb." This is not a good way to pray.

I recently read through the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5-7) a couple times, and I decided it's awesome. Especially if you're really believe that Jesus means stuff like "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." This stuff was so radical when Jesus said it 2000 years ago. I think it's still pretty radical today, which maybe means we haven't been doing a very good job of applying it. What would happen if I took these teachings as a challenge and really tried to live the rest of my life based on them? I wonder if I'd look totally different. Actually I wouldn't, because no matter how hard I'd try, I wouldn't be able to wrench my focus away from myself and actually live selflessly, which is the key to everything.

Another conversation: in response to the general theme of this blog, and specifically the entry "Laura, I love you", a friend of mine said this: he once lost the love of a woman because he demanded that she love him the way he wanted her to. If we can't force other people to love us the way we want, we certainly can't force God. So basically, I'll never get anywhere moping and whining because God won't speak to me. God will do what God will do, and I've got to either accept that or get out.

Apparently I'm Melancholic. (Don'cha love personality tests? For the record, I'm also phlegmatic, green, and an INTP.) The lovely thing about these tests is that they give you the two lists of personality traits at the end, and the first list makes you sound angelic, and the second list makes you sound like scum. My first list looks like this:
Deep and thoughtful, analytical, serious and purposeful, talented and creative, artistic or musical, philosophical and poetic, appreciative of beauty, sensitive to others, self-sacrificing, conscientious, idealistic, and (I'm not making this up) genius prone.
I guess we'd better do the negatives too. Here ya go:
remembers the negatives, moody and depressed, enjoys being hurt, has false humility, off in another world, low self-image, has selective hearing, self-centered, too introspective, guilt feelings, persecution complex, tends to hypocondria.
I don't think all this stuff applies to me (actually, I think there's more in me from the first list than the second, but that's probably just because I'm full of myself) but some of it is bang-on. "Enjoys being hurt"? Yes, I think so. "Off in another world"? For sure. And we all know I'm self-centered, moody and depressed. "False Humility"? ...That's an interesting one. Ok, raise your hand if you've achieved true humility. No one? (Well, there's always Moses, the man who was the "humblest man on earth" even after he said "I'm the humblest man on earth." That's pretty impressive.) I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this. Maybe I'm falsely humble sometimes, but I think sometimes I'm falsely proud too. I've been falsely a lot of things; I'm rarely sure if what I'm saying or feeling is "real" or not. I actually spend a fair amount of time thinking about this - perhaps too much. (After all, there's such a thing as being "too introspective".)

Hopefully these random snippits make sense to you. Hopefully you're seeing some kind of vague theme here. If not, I'll help you out. I'm thinking that what's missing in my life and my approach to seeking God and being good and selfless is humility. I think I need to humble myself and come before God and really ask him to help me be good. It doesn't matter that I can convince myself that God doesn't really answer prayer, that the Bible isn't necessarily inerrant, that there is no real evidence of God's presence in my world. I'm coming to him now on my knees, perhaps in false humility, but striving for sincerity, for true reverence and meekness and submission, asking him to accept me as I am and take these imperfect efforts of mine and make them pure and holy. I recognize that I am self-centered, proud and hostile, that my attitudes are wrong, that my desires are tainted and my resolution is feeble and my efforts are half-hearted and my all my results are pathetic and backwards. I've come to a similar conclusion to Douglas Coupland's: "I need God - I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."
So many times and so earnestly I've prayed that God would reveal himself to me. (I'm talking about those prayers in my Journal from earlier in the year.) So many times have I begged him to move powerfully in my circumstances to rock me out of my complacency, to take full control of my heart, soul, body and mind, to use me for his purposes, withholding nothing that would make me more completely his servant. But with every prayer - however heartfelt and sincere and pure in motive - comes an expectation. An expectation of a dramatic experience, a filling or a calling, an order to go or to do. And with every refusal of God to conform to my expectations comes confusion and anger and frustration.
But this time can be different. I come crawling to God now, demanding nothing, asking nothing, expecting nothing, only offering to him without reservation or condition my whole self: my bitter heart, my cynical mind, my sinful body and my tortured soul. This is my prayer: that God would do his will in me. That he would change my attitudes and remake me into a true servant, a true seeker of his will.
And now I come to you, my reader, my brother, my friend. And I come to you in humility, on my knees. You've seen what I am - all of my failings and the depths of my selfishness and pride. I want to be your servant. I want to be Jesus to you. I want to give you not only my words but my time, my sweat and blood, my love, my heart, my very self. I will do my best, but so much more than that I will beg of God that he change me and live and love through me. This is my pledge to you: that I will do my utmost - not by my own strength but through reliance on God - to truly love and serve you. And this is my request: that you be patient with me, because I will fail, that you support me, because I will become discouraged, that you refocus me, because I will wander from this path, and that you accept my servanthood, because slowly but surely I will achieve this great thing, I will die to myself and live for Him and for you. And as always, I ask that you pray for me, because without God's intervention I will never be more than a self-serving wretch. I say these things with all the earnesty and humility I possess, and I pray that God will make these statements ever more true, that more and more I would desire what I claim to desire and that it will come to pass.

[+/-] Not So Much A Camp Report As It Is Me Just Talking About Stuff

I was a chore boy again last week. It was good. I worked rarely, slept and ate a lot, and had a few good conversations. I'm not sure quite what to tell you. I'm more or less thinking and feeling and existing the same way I have been for... How long? Weeks? Months? Every strategy and effort to change my mindset or turn my life around has failed. Every setback and discouragement reinforces my suspicion that I'm stuck like this forever. I'm only getting worse, the darkness in my heart is only getting blacker. I've mentioned that I'm trying not to think about the songs that depress me, but it's so danged hard. And really, it's not just the songs, it's everything. Thinking, almost without exception, depresses me, because I always end up thinking about where I'm at with God, and then I feel compelled to be miserable. One of these songs that gets played over and over in my mind goes like this:

There is anger in my blood
There is darkness in my spirit
There is screaming in my heart
If you listen you can hear it
There's a dragon deep inside
That I cannot seem to slay
And I begin to realize
That this shadow's here to stay

Not much of a song. (Yes, I wrote it myself. It occupied my mind for a couple days back when I worked on an assembly line for a month. To be a real song it should be longer, but I can't figure out the next part. Maybe some day.) Anyway, I think that's a fairly accurate representation of my feelings.
I recently read over my Journal from the past year. Like most things related to me, it's discouraging. Actually, it's almost like the chronology of my discouragement, which developed primarily over the past 10 months. I was so different back in September, before everything happened, I almost read the stuff I wrote then as the life of some other person. I feel a great deal of sympathy for this person, almost a righteous anger (in this case, would that be self-righteous anger?) on his behalf. He wasn't Jacob then, not really. He was a passionate young man full of potential and a desire to be all he could be and do all he could do for this great God whom he loved. Some of the things he said back then were so beautiful! They should be put on little inspirational calendars and keychains with pictures of mountains and sunsets and sold for exorbitant prices at Blessings. I don't know why God did what He did to that boy. I don't know why He left him alone and imperceptive to His voice or His touch or His presence.
I don't know why I'm writing this. Some of you will flatly disagree, and no amount of pouting on my part will convince you that I really am hard done by. Others of you will be angry with God on my behalf (as I am for the me of the past), but that doesn't do anyone any good. When I look at it as just what God is doing (or not doing) with me now, I'm not angry with him. I remember that he's God, and he knows what's best for me. (And even if he were out to destroy me, would that not be fully within his rights?) Weird, isn't it, that I can only be angry with God over some perceived slight towards some other person? If I want to be mad with him about what he's done to me, I have to step back and be the 3rd person, as I did up above. I don't know why I'm telling you this, except that it just came to me, and that I want to clarify that it has never been my intention to convince the reader that God's a jerk, or doing something wrong. I honestly don't feel that way myself, I'm just confused and stagnant and I don't know why all the things that are supposed to bring us "closer to God" seem to do the opposite for me, and I don't know how to change my life around.
What am I? This question really nags at me. Am I a really stubborn, lazy person who just wants to justify his lack of effort? Am I a really stupid person who just can't see the answer to my problems sitting right in front of me? Am I a really impatient person who used to try but gave up when it didn't work out? Am I a really self-important person who just wants Almighty God to do things his way? Am I just an unfortunate person whose natural mentality and disposition make it ridiculously hard to do what he should? (I could go on, but you get the idea.) Everyone's got a theory. Everyone's got advice (because I asked) on how to fix my problems. It's just all so confusing and overwhelming, and only one person in the universe knows who I really am and what's really going on and how to fix it. And he's not telling.