It was great to be able to chat with you for so long, in spite of the disturbing circumstances. However, God is faithful and I know His truth will prevail.
Alana and I were working on a card project for church which had us in the scriptures. During the course of that time, I came across a few scriptures that I thought you would appreciate. Psalm 77:1-14 seemed to capture some of your thoughts you expressed last night:
I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted.
I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak.
I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked: “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love...
stop trying to queue up the next day’s tasks to fit into the time available to me and instead just keep a running list, believing that this will make it less likely that I obsess over my task list,
proceed through my task list in the order I present it to my self, which will often mean that praying is the first thing I do,
eat less and mostly greens for lunch,
renew my commitment to eating no more than one helping at dinner, and
stop fasting on Mondays and instead skip breakfast on Sundays.
It was a delight yesterday to hear with the kids the Penn State senior flute quartet play with this piece, which had a lick I think they borrowed from Debussy. They did just that: play, passing the fetching melody back and forth, making for an exquisitely planned but apparently ludic soundscape. It made me think of God.
In light of the bean burning incident, action! In light of last month’s crippling doubt, action! Let my love for Carla no longer comprise talking; let it rather comprise doing. Let my Christian faith no longer comprise reading, thinking, and praying; let it rather be listening, acting, and sharing! But especially acting.
Serious consideration of the thoughts in the Atheism volume led to further reading on the Internet, which gave room for three theological “why?" questions to burrow into my soul:
Why, if God is all-good and all-powerful, does the world contain apparently meaningless suffering and evil?
Why, if God wants a relationship with His creatures, doesn’t He make Himself more obvious?
Why, if prayer is supposed to work the way I understand the Bible to describe it working, doesn’t it work more often?
These questions led to serious religious doubt back in May, which led to anxiety, which led to a sleepless night, despite my anguished cries for rest.
Since then, I had mostly been able keep conscious doubt at bay. The...
I value browsing Twitter, but doing it during usual bathroom time first thing in the morning prevents me from getting outside and taking a walk with You, God. So I will save it for a break from my DiamondBack work instead.
I re-read an email from my mom today, and line therein precipitated some religious anxiety in me:
However, God is faithful and I know His truth will prevail.
I wondered rhetorically to her: How do you know that His truth will prevail in my life? Has it prevailed in Jami’s life? Jessica’s? Every believer you know? For that matter, how do I know to what extent God was directly involved in my own recent salvation from the cliffs of doubt? Did He actually do anything? I certainly can’t think of anything obviously supernatural that happened to help bring me back. Was it all just my own? Sure, I am rich in friends, some of whom have miracle accounts, and Carla’s support and uptick in libido sure helped. But how do I thank Him for a role I’m not sure He played? And if He didn’t play that role, what does that mean about Him and His will for our lives? Does He even exist? Wouldn’t be easier to explain the lack of miraculous intervention to save me from doubt by saying He simply doesn’t?
For our date tonight, Sullivan and I purchased the Estes’ Shuttle Express model rocket kit today from HobbyTown USA over in the Benner Pike Shops. He was delighted, and when we returned home, we got started right away. It was gratifying to contribute toward something about which he is avid.
Plus, we found out that there is a maker space in State College now that has open houses every Wednesday evening. Sullivan and I could finally have a medium between us that will help us connect.
I just told Carla: “I evaluate what you’re thinking too quickly. I’m sorry.” She admitted doing the same to me. O Lord, that we be quick to listen and slow to speak.
I like the idea of viewing the whole of life as a gift for which I can be grateful. The problem I see with it is that it’s hard to see it that way without tripping into thinking that You have provided it specifically to me, as if You were specifically more providential in my life than, say, in the life of an impoverished, persecuted Christian in India.
God, if the translators are right, I’m not sure You could have chosen a more potent name in the face of skeptics: I AM is about as pithy and defiant as a name could be.
Lord, help me find a way back to gratitude to You. If you are as distant as I might decide to think You mostly are, I’m not sure on what grounds I thank You for, say, the food before me at dinner.
“I lay down and slept;
I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me.
I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me round about.”
— Psalm 3:5-6
Reading through the Psalms is going to provide ample fodder for prayer—and encouragement and peace, I think, especially as I construe all the enemies involved as demons or anxieties or skeptics. Not that I will wish harm upon the skeptics as the psalmists wish about their enemies; but I will, as indicated in the above quotation, not be afraid of them.
What to make of Jesus’ extreme and embarrassing statements about the efficacy of faithful prayer, such as “All things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive”? There
“Jesus is speaking hyperbolically.” This seems to me the most likely, or at least the most acceptable, option. Greg Boyd would claim this one.
“Jesus was speaking literally, but ‘believing’ means something different from what I think it means, perhaps something closer to the ‘just knowing’ I used to get when prompted to pray for people’s headaches to go away.” This is C.S. Lewis’ take on the matter, at least as I remember one of his letters to Malcom on prayer.
“Jesus didn’t say that.” Liberal Christians would claim this one.
All three options are plausible and don’t require me to abandon my faith in Jesus.
The most significant thing that happened was that Sullivan and I finally managed to get the Yankee into the sky. It helps that I had to climb fifteen feet up into the first oak on the right side of the paved park path to retrieve the rocket after the launch.
We will both continue the hobby. That bodes well for our relationship. With Éa, I’ll always have music, but with Sully, I’ve been searching for a material thing to serve as a connecting point for us. May we be like that pair of clips on either side of the starter, side by side launching stuff into the sky.
