Scott Stilson

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Doubt makes me want to puke.

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God, You must decide not to answer some prayer, and it must be for a good reason. I can’t believe that You are so weak as to be thwarted in such a simple prayer as “God, please help me fall asleep,” or “God, please keep the bad dreams away,” or so mean as to callously turn a deaf ear to such a request. You decide to withhold for a reason. I think this happens more than the open theists allow. They overemphasize the success of those who thwart You.

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I have recently decided to protest the apparently common atheist assertion that praying people pray only for those things that might happen without divine intervention anyway by praying for things I know God wants but that would also be impossible without Him.

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You could see distress primarily as an obstacle to faith. But it might be more useful to see it as a means of grace.

Even better, you could see distress as an opportunity to help.

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With “40 (How Long),” U2 beat IHOPKC to harp & bowl by fifteen years.

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Today, Richard Beck combined two of my favorite things: ecclesiology and Calvin & Hobbes.

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Death doesn’t mean the same thing to God as it does to us. That’ll help your theodicy.

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An unfinished verse about the problem of divine hiddenness

O, invisible God, whom I cannot see,
Please, please reveal Yourself to me.
I don’t understand what you gain by hiding,
Blah-biddy blah, biddy-blah biddy fighting.
But I know You are love, if you are anything all,
Blah-biddy blah, biddy-blah biddy fall. ✏️ 🎤 🎵

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Why is faith a virtue?

Faith is a virtue inasmuch as its object is trustworthy. In the classical definition of God, then, it’s a pretty strong virtue.

And as for my requests recently to experience Him in a way that is inexplicable except by His intrusion, let me remind myself that with the miracles others around me have experienced, He has given me enough to go on.

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Let not your to-do list take the place of the Holy Spirit.

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This afternoon and evening were unhappy. It could be that I stayed up till a bit past 11 last night chitchatting with Carla in bed. But I think it’s more because I hewed too closely to my daily task list. More importantly, I didn’t hew very closely to You. There are times when I get “too efficient,” as Carla says, capturing task items very well but ignoring priorities, ignoring my heart, ignoring my desires, ignoring You. Why, today I could swear Carol requested my help in her remembering her frozen water bottle before she leaves tomorrow morning on her bus ride home because she saw that I am so robotically dedicated to my very reliable task list. But I’m a man, not a machine. I don’t ever want to lose my connection to You, or to the people around me. Let me be alive, not always working.

Maybe Watchman Nee is more correct that I thought, with his proposed dichotomy between living by the principle of right/wrong versus living by the principle of life. I still think it sounds too mystical.

The capsule reflection on that pamphlet that I posted to Goodreads: “I object strongly to the dichotomy introduced between decision-making based on right vs. wrong and making decisions based on “life,” whatever that is. Nevertheless, the pamphlet served as a reminder to me to not trust in my to-do list and trust instead that God is inside me, at work, and that referring to Him is the best way to make decisions.”

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I was just praying through some of my “Favorites” I’ve marked via the new BibleGateway app, and it occurred to me: If I’m going to pray that I not be able to stop speaking about what I’ve seen and heard (Acts 4:20), I’m going to need to see something. The folks praying that prayer originally saw the Resurrection. I’ve seen nothing of the sort. So Lord, please give me or open my eyes to something to speak about!

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After an evening with the Houserville Social Club that included a LifeFlight helicopter takeoff, new friends Janine & Kimberly joining us at the table, Wengyi signing up for the email list, a game of cups (frickets) played heartily with Carla, Lara, and the kids, then more dowel/disc/cup fun with just the kids, I find further peace in my current station. I am a:

The list above is enough of an identity and set of pursuits to satisfy this hungry-for-meaning soul. I need do no other “great” things. If I fulfill my roles above with all my might (the specific, mutable ones subject to Your redirection), I shall be happy, and I shall not blink on Judgment Day.

More importantly, I shall no longer be subject to judge-and-second-guess-myself day, which used to happen, like, every day of my life but now wanes in frequency until it shall soon disappear completely.

And as for my doubts and questions, whether You are a restrictivist, an inclusivist, a universalist, or even a religious figment, my life will be best lived if I live it as though You are completely real. My prayer is that my doubts have three effects: More sympathy, less dogma, especially toward my children, and more action, since faith-as-action is much more important than faith-as-specific-credence to Inclusivist Yahweh, and Restrictivist Yahweh seems to prefer action as well.

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“…nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You” (Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20:12). My, what a timely verse to pass on to Eric, who lost his job and has to decide what to do, and what a fine motto for any time like that.

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“And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply“ (Acts 4:14). Miracles silence Your opponents. That’s what makes their dearth so curious.

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“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is merely a more rhetorical way of saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Nevertheless, I do question whether incredulity toward an ancient miracle-claim is reason to withhold eternal life from those You love. If doubting Thomas gets a pass—[with a rebuke](John 20:24-29), I readily admit—why not the rest of us?

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Acknowledge of mail order of ornamental alliums for Scott’s tenth wedding anniversary

I bought Carla some flowers today. Consider it an improvement on the one cut rose per year we’ve been married.

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I’ve written it before: I am going to live my ordinary life in an extraordinary way: Rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, giving thanks in all circumstances, in humility of mind regarding those around me as more important than myself, loving You with all my heart, mind, soul and strength in my quotidian. I guarantee the non-quotidian will follow from there.

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Good news for folks like me who sometimes worry whether Jesus’ instructions to the rich young ruler to sell 100% of what he owned and distribute it to the poor might be required of you to inherit eternal life per Luke 18:18-27: In the very next chapter, Jesus said Zaccheus was saved upon pledging just half.

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I understand why trust is a virtue, particularly trust in the almighty creator. I don’t understand by it has to be just so blind, nor do I understand why it is the virtue on which salvation from death depends.

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He’s Indonesian, Japanese, American, now Dutch.
Jimmy Hutasoit, we will miss you very much.
May you find a church with other folks who really really care.
Above it all, we pray, may you find Jesus Christ o’er there.

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Mike Licona published a short piece on doubt today that I greatly sympathize with and thus found very encouraging.

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Since Licona will be using plausibility “as the most important criterion” (p.113), his chapter entitled “The Historian and Miracles,” which comes up next, had better be good.

He also says that since to hypothesize a real resurrection of Jesus is to hypothesize a singular event, you can’t apply Bayes’ theorem because you can’t asses the prior probability of a unique event (p. 120). But what if your hypothesis is that the report of Jesus’ resurrection is false? Couldn’t you assess the prior probability of a resurrection report’s falsehood by looking at other the veracity of other resurrection reports?

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To a skeptic materialist, ’tis no bad news to hear that God will annihilate him for his disbelief, because on that we already agree: To a materialist, annihilation is what happens to us at death anyway.

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While walking with God through a nearby neighborhood in the wake of a few spats this morning with wife about housekeeping, it finally clicked: The housekeeping and homemaking is her work. It may even be helpful to compare the house to my computer and desktop workspace. Before I do any of the following again, it would be best to consider how it would make me feel if anyone came to my computer or desktop workspace and did the same: