The hound of heaven

I had really wanted to journal all my thoughts day by day that they might be a record of what's going on, but I've found them too fickle. If I were to journal every change in my mercurial mood I would do nothing but write.

The last months have been fairly good. I've come to some conclusions that around this fear of death is a true clinical depression that hampers my progress. Perhaps even that my crisis is more of chemistry than faith.

But, that leaves a single question unresolved to my satisfaction: Why would God not deliver me from it? In many things I can accept that God leaves us to the devices he allowed us to create, medicines and such. In matters of faith though I expect the Holy Spirit to step in and essentially say, "I've got this one."

I've picked back up my apologetic readings. Tonight I was reading Ravi Zacharias' book Jesus Among Other Gods. The first chapter is really about his story of how God pursued him.

Towards the end he reads from a poem by Francis Thompson titled The Hound of Heaven. In it Thompson outlines his desperate attempts to flee God and the measured persistence of God to pursue him. That made me think. While Thompson fled God I want to pursue intimacy with Him richly. Why then does Thompson feel the persistent presence and I feel the chilly absence.

I say absence somewhat in hyperbole. Sure, I do feel God but when I seek Him the most I feel He steps away. It's almost as though he will always stay a given distance. If I go two steps forward, He goes two back. If I go two back, He steps forward two.

This makes me question, does God love me. Rarely do I read of people feeling the way I do. That frightens me. Is that because I'm not like them, maybe that I've been forsaken in some way.

That's a feeling, my logic steps in and tells me something different. But then again if this were all logic I'd have been just fine months ago.

Books I'm reading

One of the pastors I've been talking to the other day asked me if I wanted to be argued into my faith. In a sense, yes.

I'm seeking to meet my faith with my reason. Being made in the likeness of God, He gave me reason much like his own. So my exploration of my understanding is really me fulfilling the way in which God made me.

So here are a few books I'm reading right now to go through that (links to Amazon included):
Mere Christianity
Jesus Among other gods
The Case for Faith (not a lot right now)
Branding Faith (not directly linked to this journey but still an awesome book I'm reading that is faith related)
The Bible

There are a few more here and there but those are the ones I'm working on daily. I also have a list of upcoming books I want to read.

Next Steps

Today's challenge has been a lot like the others, I simply fear death.

I think a lot of this boils down to that I'm closing a chapter of my life and moving to the next. While I have a lot left to live it has made the concept of death very poignant. It's just an overall sense of dread which goes back to my earlier statement, eternity is a really long time so you better be sure.

Today as I close out my day the thought that allows me to sleep is that I am sure (tonight). Just like the name of this blog says I know I'm not dying as much as I'm stepping from this life into eternity. It's simply another chapter, a bridge.

Drugs

Guys I've mentioned I don't have it together here. This is sort of a journal for me as I walk through this thing (I keep calling it a thing, maybe that is somehow less frightening).

This weekend was another kind of frightening time for me. It's so weird. I don't doubt God, heaven, eternity, any of it. Yet I find myself dreading death. So silly I think.

Today is one of those days.

I had a thought- maybe if I'm confident in my salvation, the existence of God, and the eternity of heaven, the rest is physiological. After all I have been diagnosed with some sort of mild depression and obsessive tendencies (I told you I was being open).

Maybe after I feel confident in those the rest is up to Prozac?

Just a thought.

Mid-life

In case you didn't know I'm 27. Not that old but for me I'm closing a chapter of my life. No longer can I be tired to my youth. Season-wise I'm about a third through. Maybe that's why I'm suddenly thinking about this so much.

A revalation

I ask you to forgive the non sequitor way that some of these posts are going. Don't forget I've had almost three months now of history before I began this blog.

Last week, on Wednesday, I had an amazing revelation.

I was sitting with Sarah when all of a sudden all of the stress of these thoughts hit me like a tidal wave. To say I was crying would be like saying it's raining during a monsoon. In between sobs I was able to get out the fact that I knew death was coming. It was a static date in history.

I just kept saying, I don't want to go through it. Imagine something terrifying you knew you had to go through, the death of a friend, a divorce, being fired from work, whatever and multiple by 1,000. It was this dreadful thing in the distance that I can't slow down or deter. I can't outhink it or outtalk it. It's coming.

Like I said I lost it.

I kind of calmed down and Sarah went to get ready for bed. I stayed down to pray and had an amazing conversation with God. Then Luke 9:24 just started playing through my head. "He who wishes to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake, will save it." I just started giving up my life to God.

I don't care about what I want.

I've already discovered this life is a blip on the eternal radar screen. What does it matter. My treasure is in heaven. It was an amazingly freeing feeling.

Now each day I have to keep reminding myself to offer up my life because I have this bad habit of wanting to take it back.

Why I think atheists are wickety wack

Ok so I said I'd tell you guys why I think the idea that there is no God is plain stupid. First I really don't mean to offend but I'm a really logical guy and I think God left us enough clue to discover His existence at some level. So here are a couple of things that I just can't get around, that for me are His fingerprints that I can't ignore.

1. Eternity- all by itself. The fact is there states that there must be a beginning. It all had to start somewhere. But, why and how? Let's take the scientific viewpoint and explore the Big Bang (by the way since I'm not writing a book these are my cliff's notes and won't fully explain every aspect). So there's are this material, more dense than a supernova (which by the way contains more mass than our solar system in the space of a teaspoon). STOP! Where did that come from? I mean it had to come from somewhere right? The primordial ooze had to start somewhere. I can't get past that point alone. It all had to start somewhere, which leads to the question of time. So here we are in this space in time. Why now? Why did the big bang go off when it did? I mean there was an eternal expanse before that, why then? You see, we need the wrapper of time around things or else everything just gets all wickety wack. But that wrapper actually creates the need for something to be able to step outside of it. Time can't create of itself but eternity can't exist without something that can exist in it, and we, under our laws of nature are not that.
2. The universe- along the same lines as eternity. Where does it end? If it goes on forever to me that proves the concept of eternity which proves the need for something that can exist in it. No lie, this stuff hurts my head but it makes sense to me. If it does end then something must hold it. Even if that something is not God then that something must end, and then the something that holds that something must end, again it proves eternity. Simply put our scientific world can't figure out eternity, it can't work in our world of time. Math can't compute it.
3. The concept of right and wrong- No matter what age or time or country there has been a known set of right and wrong that is strangely congruent with other ages, times and cultures set of right and wrong. A little less than 4,000 years ago (a really long time) Hammurabi's code was written. Many of the laws there are still relevant today. Furthermore, even Hammurabi acknowledged receiving this sense of right and wrong from a deity. The reason right and wrong are so poignant is that they aren't convenient. They aren't what we would like to do, it's what we know we ought to do. Stealing is obviously easier than working. Telling the truth can often have negative consequences. Yet in both cases we know which we ought to do and it is often at odds with what we want to do. Since right is an inconvenience it seems impossible that man would create these laws. Something outside of our convenience must have put those into place.

The combination of these powerful elements to me proves the existence of something outside our existence. Something that created us. As I said initially I don't have any trouble believing that that is Christ, God, not Allah or some other god. Based on my theology that is what is called the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. While I look at Christianity and long for it, desire it, find it beautiful (IT not the concepts or beliefs), all other religions look pale and flat and unappealing.

Let me say this in closing, I don't have it figured out. That's why I started this blog, I'm struggling and I think other people can relate to where I'm at right now. I think too, that where I'm at may help some who are still yet to be there. 

Please post a comment, argue back, ask questions, tell me where you are, but in all of this do so prayerfully. Your answer will not come from me but God.