My aversion to academic writing under deadlines is what doomed any thought of me becoming an academic myself, but a love for academic reading could make this book the first in a long run tomes that pass through my house by way of my friends-of-Penn-State library card.

A few critical notes as I dive back in to Matthew McCormick’s book:

• Concision carries rhetorical power. And McCormick is concise.
• I agree that miracles don’t happen nearly as often as I wish they would or think they should. But that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. How do I account for some of the miracles my friend Marshall describes (i.e., the rain stopping, the word of knowledge for the divorcée, and the healed tumor)? How do I explain the healing ministry of Heidi Baker?

Wife and I share a concern that wherever this doubt and I end up, that I don’t end up lacking in the strength and security that I’ve given her and the kids with my faith in Jesus.

Is it not possible that the strength and security I’ve given comes not from being a conduit for Jesus but rather from my having certainty about my purpose and mission, a surety of a unifying guide, a lodestar principle? If I have a lodestar principle and mission I can settle on other than Jesus—what am I writing?!?—perhaps I can still lend strength to my family even if I end up a doubting Thomas.

friend:

I just wanted to let you know that my thoughts have been with you after hearing about your sleepless night. I think I understand the sort of turmoil you are in; I’ve been deep in it for a while!

I would be delighted to talk more…and/or to let ideas and feelings percolate as needed.

self:

Thank you for your sympathy. You and your husband are good people.

That it wasn’t until thirty-three years old for this devout Christian to experience his first pangs of doubt probably accounts for why it was so intense. It was a doubly novel experience for me: my first doubts and my first involuntarily sleepless night. A doozy I don’t hope to relive.

But now that I’ve slept some and my thoughts have settled, one could say in summary that not much has changed: I am simply less sure of all my Christian beliefs. Still, it’s strange to pray to a god you’re less sure exists. His hiddenness used to be a source of knowing laughter in prayer. Now it’s a bit more serious than that.

Anyway, I currently plan to pause on the McCormick volume until Sunday or so. We’ll see what happens as I continue reading. You still plan to finish, yes? In the apparent absence of a volume directly responding to it, I still plan to read this Licona volume from 2010 as its companion. I have requested a copy from Schlow via interlibrary loan.

One thought I don’t want to forget jotting down: McCormick speaks of an amazingly powerful, biologically seated Urge in people that’s at the genesis of all religions. I say if the we have the Urge, whether it’s God-given, biologically endowed, or both, why not find its best outlet instead of trying to stuff it?

Another thought: Historically, I have a very low tolerance for being unsettled: I’m the guy who unpacks all his belongings into the hotel dresser drawers for a two-night stay just for a sense of settledness. So I don’t plan to stay here long. Hopefully our exploring this together will help you, too, to leave this turmoil and reach solid ground—whether that’s at the mouth of an miraculously vacant tomb or not.

Finally, let me reciprocate: Send me thoughts, ideas, feelings whenever you wish at whatever pace you wish. I have a deep love for deliberation and collaboration as a means of truth-getting.

When I restart my reading of Atheism and the Case Against Christ, I plan to actively take critical notes along the way. To fight back, as it were.

Carla: He looks like the beggar at the Beautiful Gate.
Éa: Who?
Scott: One of the people Jesus healed. One of many.
Éa: Killed?
Scott: HEALED.
Carla: And THAT. is why I don’t want our children to read Bible stories yet.

I feel a certain loneliness today, a longing for fellowship. It’s probably because Carla is sick and spent most of the day in bed, although it feels like I’ve been missing something for a while now, a need for a best friend with whom I share not only interests, proximity, and mutual affection, but also approach to God, approach to self-conduct, and way of thinking. No friend of mine thinks like I do. Ethan is the closest I can think of. Perhaps I need to drop him a line.

Nonetheless, Carla and I did finally finish Greed (1924) this evening together. It was an excellent film that prompted me to pray, “Lord, please keep us from being deceived by money.”

Jordan and Stephen divulged to me on our way up to Philipsburg for DiamondBack Christmas party day that playing vertical music for Keystone was the worst experience in their worship-playing careers. The motif of their report was that the people there were “mean.”

As Carla said upon my report of that revelation later this evening, “It’s good when wolves are wolves.”

Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you; and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people…so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.

— Paul in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

A gentle sense of Your presence in my life suffused my soul today after work as I reflected on the verse above. Life was good today, and the verse above indicates that love makes us majestically holy. Wow.

While shopping for a Christmas gift for my mom, I found online lists of the best worship albums of the year. I felt convicted: Why have I not been more avid a seeker of music that is not only musically marvelous but thematically rich? Why have I not more frequently combined my favorite medium (music) with my favorite theme (God)?

Grumpiness is a sign that I have not properly handled some other negative emotion. Today, for instance, I didn’t properly handle my feeling tired, having run from to grocery shopping with Éa to unpacking the car to choosing a Christmas tree to decorating for Christmas with Janet over, all without taking a breath.

Put another way, I didn’t guard my heart, tending to it when it was tired, and as a result, it, my wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23) started to taste bad.

I need to start exploring and expressing negative emotions before they herniate as grumpiness.

(Once again, this mini-revelation came after I asked God to speak to me.)

Shortly after praying tonight that God help me connect with Him, I was reminded that I feel most connected to Him when I apply deliberate, singular concentration to whatever it is I’m doing. I’m so easily distracted by other things I want that I think this serial single-mindedness good practice regardless of its capacity for facilitating divine connection.

NB: Not only concentration, but might. As it’s written: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men” (Colossians 3:23) and “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

“You don’t know in advance whether God is going to set you to do something difficult or painful, or something that you will quite like; and some people of heroic mould are disappointed when the job doled out to them turns out to be something quite nice.”

— C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (p. 53–54), in response to “Is it true that Christians must be prepared to live a life of personal discomfort and sacrifice in order to qualify for ‘Pie in the Sky’?”

The recent thing You’ve been emphasizing to me is the part he says about folks with the ‘heroic mould.’

At Barb’s prompting at church today with some help from having talked with Ethan last night, I recapped what I meant by church last week having changed my life: In the same way that I’ve ceased wanting to be a great singer and begun just singing, blowing away my received application of Matthew 24:14 has finally allowed me to cease wanting to be a great Christian and begin just Christ-ing.

“Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2).

This is for you, friend: This verse is a greeting and general prayer for well-being for Gaius, not unlike what we would write in a letter today (if we really meant it), not evidence that all Christians should be wealthy.

“I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (3 John 4).

This is my prayer for my children. Please hear it.

“For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, so that we may be fellow workers with the truth” (3 John 7-8)

God, I want to be a fellow worker with the truth. That’s why I want to join in Your work in the Maldives somehow. (And this is a good, healthier replacement for great, self-sacrificial interpretation of Matthew 24:14 that the church obliterated for me last week.)

To put it roughly, church today obliterated the misapplication of Matthew 24:14, so continually argued by John Piper, the Perspectives course I took at the Teen Mania Honor Academy, and really, every missiologist I’ve ever encountered, that we all must be involved in world evangelization in some way or else we are less-than Christians. That if the idea that if Matthew 24:14 doesn’t move me to proactively involved myself missions, then I don’t actually love Jesus’ coming or love God with all my heart, mind, soul & strength.

The removal of this thorn in my devotional side is a big deal: As Matt and I discussed during our walk on Friday, neither of us has ever been able to completely shake the idea that we are falling short because we haven’t yet made an extraordinary, life-altering, self-sacrificial decision for the sake of others’ God-borne happiness. I think I have finally shrugged if off.

In its place, the idea is that I can be the “sort of people [I] ought…to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:11) at all times, doing it-doesn’t-matter-what so long as it can be done in love (1 Corinthians 16:14). And I take face-value definitions for “holy” and “godly”: setting side one’s life for God and being very God-minded.

Now, despite my new sense of liberty in Christ, I will nevertheless remain wary of my good fortune. As it occurred to me at Your table today:

Yes, Lord, I will enjoy these riches, But of them be very suspicious.

May we never be deceived by wealth, entangled by the concerns of the world, or lured by desires for other things. May we always stand ready for the call to “go forth from [our] country, and from [our] relatives, and from [our] father’s house, to the land which [You] will show [us]” (Genesis 12:1).

But wow, Father, You’re better than I imagined.

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence (Psalm 42:5).

Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life (Proverbs 4:23).

The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives (Ecclesiastes 9:3).

Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things (Ecclesiastes 11:9).

The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9).

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37).

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries… (Mark 7:21).

Do not let your heart be troubled… (John 14:1).

From these Scriptures and more, I refine my understanding of the human (i.e., my) heart: It’s like a little kid. Irrational. Impressionable. Often rash. Full of vim and desire, you give it what it wants because your vitality and happiness depend on it. But you don’t give it what it wants when what it wants dishonors God, hurts other people, or lends itself to longer-term unhappiness. And you do what you can to shape its desires to conform to your own values, having patience but firmness about good priorities.

Thank You, God, for this lesson. I’m impressed.

“To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit… (1 Peter 3:8).

I’ve been praying this a lot recently for Carla, the kids, and myself, and I think You’re answering my prayer. Thank You.

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded” (John 13:3-5).

Since we know that You have given us all things into our hands via Jesus, and that we have come forth from You and are going back to you, may we get up from our suppers, lay aside our garments, and start washing feet.

“Daddy, will you draw me a picture of Jesus?”

— Éa, at the end of a bedtime conversation that started, “When you die, do you stop moving?” and included “I don’t want to die,” brief tears, and a “Don’t worry, Darling. We all die, but Jesus will bring us back to life again.” Carla pointed out that Éa will probably take that to mean that we “bounce back” to life immediately after dying. This was a terrifying conversation to have, because I don’t want to glib, but I don’t want to talk over her head, but I don’t want to mince the truth. God, You gave this girl to us. Help!

In other news, Carla won a seat on College Township Council today.

Jesus specializes in bringing joy and life to sad, desolate places. Sometimes He arrives what appears to be too late.

But it’s never too late for Jesus to come through. Find your hope in Him.

Carla suggested it would be a good idea to write down the reasoning behind my decision to about-face and work for DiamondBack full-time forever.

In brief: Working for West Arête a little bit enabled me to see that I’ve been the victim of a bad case of grass-is-greener syndrome for years. I’ve decided to go back to working full-time for DiamondBack, with no plans to seek alternative employment in the foreseeable future.

Less brief: God, You helped me dispel the myth of the golden-haired woman in my own life sometime in between when I broke things off with Val and when I started dating Carla. But we never applied the same metaphor to my career: I’ve been believing the myth of the golden-haired job probably since my time at Teen Mania. (What Color Is Your Parachute? probably didn’t help.)

“Everything about working for DiamondBack is great, except for the fact that it’s truck bed covers.” I’ve been saying that for two years now. I ignored the first clause, however, and concentrated entirely on the second. Why? Because I believed that there was such a thing as the perfect, soul-satisfying job right out of the box somewhere. If I picked a job that employed the transferable skills I most enjoyed in a field that excited me, I’d be set. I would have made a perfect choice. I’d be right and happy.

I was convinced that working for DiamondBack would predetermine that I suffer a bad midlife crisis in twenty years, so in typical overcommunicative fashion I overplayed the value of several positives of working for West Arête:

• Doing more web development
• Learning new skills
• Working downtown (i.e., access to cultural events, connections to new people, feeling cool)
• Riding my bike to work
• Working with local people for local people
• No vacation days but unlimited freedom to take off as needed
• Better health coverage
• Cultural fit (i.e., environmentalism, priority on work-life balance, bicycles, local business)

And I underplayed many of the positives of working for DiamondBack:

• Presenting the right balance of mastery and challenge
• Working from home:
  • enjoyment of kids,
  • enjoyment of Carla,
  • leisurely pace,
  • no clothes overhead,
  • autonomy,
  • freedom to break for prayer or whatever
• Plenty of allotted vacation days
• Working for Ethan & Brandon
• Working with people I’ve grown to love
• Cultural fit (i.e., Christianity, priority on work-life balance)
• Much higher salary
• Freedom to move to Quebec
• Being a known quantity I’ve already taken fully into account in shaping my life and therefore not having to think about it at all

Looking at the lists above and now having a lucid idea of who I am, it’s obvious which job is the better fit.

The crucial missing ingredient in my career at DiamondBack wasn’t money, local connections, or even the opportunity to do web development. It was commitment. Had I been devoted to my job at DiamondBack, I would’ve said to Brandon last spring, “No, I’m sorry, I can’t accept you taking development completely out of my hands. But I love DiamondBack. So can we please find a way to make this work?”

“I love watching your heart and your head duke it out,” said Barb at church on Sunday when I brought this up, sometimes in tears. Deciding to return to DiamondBack feels different from deciding to depart for West Arête. I sure hope I can discern the difference between my heart and my head next time anything like this comes up again.

New habit to form: Any time I’m tempted to think or express a grumble, I will deny the thought but use it as a prompt to thank God or people for something.