Things I Struggle With...

1) Loving The Avett Borthers, NEEDTOBREATHE, The Civil Wars, Adele (Ahem-Taylor-Swift-ahem), and Mumford & Sons too much.

2) Agnostics: I was one. And I love logic.

3) Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: The American Church’s fake Gospel. It’ll make sound truth of Matthew 7:21-22.

4) Lady Gaga: What’s a ‘gaga?’

5) ‘Christians’ taking their list of conscionable (extra-biblical) morals and placing it on everyone (i.e. legalism).

6) Folks that ask for advice then don’t take the advice. The Three Musketeers had a quote about that, “As a general rule, 'he had once said, 'people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or, if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it.'-Athos”

7) WSU’s Earth Science class, last week we learned about Mars (?!?), and all the videos are from 1980, so mullets prevail.

8) Jalapeño Cheez-its. They look like the original, but they are most definitely not the original, surprise!

9) Straight evolution: If it was Theistic evolution I might could understand a bit more, but straight up undiluted evolution makes me go, “Whoa, that’s a lot of faith,”

10) The Silmarillion, it’s good, but you need to focus to read it.

Simply Complex

“Astoundingly simple yet infinitely complex.” This is the gospel we believe. For in a sense all that must be done is to believe, truly believe, yet in that same sense, “truly believing,” comes only from the changing of your heart. Being born again – made fully, and finally, alive.

For many they “cannot help but believe,” which for agnostics and atheists alike drives them nuts (and reasonably so). For some they must search out meanings and swim in the fathoms of the ocean of belief before they’re saturated to the heart with it. For others, they simply can’t believe.

“… If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 9:9)” It is indeed astoundingly simple, this process of belief. Yet the complexities of it will resonate through the believer’s life until their death, and even then their eternity will be and already is being shaped by it.

“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. (Isa 45:22)” Turn, some translations say ‘look,’ and be saved. What is more easy than looking? Yet what is more difficult than dying to self?

Astoundingly simply, yes - O my God yes - to believe my wretchedness redeemed is astoundingly simple (because I long to believe it). Infinitely complex, very much so, for why should God redeem my wretchedness? How do I die to myself? How do I see Jesus as more worthy of all of me than my stuff? (I’m sure the questions would fill this journal if I were to keep writing them, for infinitely means unending).