Return

I thought I might like to write a little bit since I haven't in awhile.

About 19 months ago I moved to Thailand, a decision that absolutely changed my life...overwhelmingly for the better.

I have grown a lot in the past two years. In the first few weeks of Cambodia and the early days of Thailand, God led me back to Himself, and to me, this has been the most profound shift in my life.

A series of strictly logical problems with theology and Christianity had grown from doubts in to roadblocks as my years progressed at LMU, ultimately leading me to something between a philosophical roadblock and some sort of pragmatic stalemate. To be clear, issues of Justice (capital letters here), Love, and Divine Sovereignty weighed too heavily on my mind to accept God as God. I took God out of the equation, and tried to work things out by myself. In hindsight, this was the wrong approach. Thankfully, a strong upbringing kept me from making drastic changes to my lifestyle, and thankfully again, my stubbornness to change my way of life in light of changes in my worldview exposed a very serious flaw in my own logic.

Thank God for the conscience.

I know the difference between right and wrong, and as much as I wanted to dismiss God because I didn't approve of his creation, I was convicted of my own sin. I know I do wrong no matter how hard I try to do right. I know that wrongs must be punished and therefore I deserve punishment. If you smash my window, I can well enough decide not to make you pay for it (mercy) and I can even forgive you (grace), but the window is still broken. Granting mercy and grace, the only just solution at this point is for me to pay for the window myself. You're already off the hook, and I can't just make someone else pay.

I've known this analogy for years and it's always rang true. I don't follow Jesus because I like "Christianity" the religion, because I like to sing songs and go to church. I follow Jesus because He was actually here, spoke truth, showed Himself as God and offered a solution to the problem of sin.

What an enormous gift, and with it, I feel so driven. I've spent a good portion of the last 2 years of my life hunting down opportunities to serve God. Next week I'll be leaving on my 9th international volunteer project.

In August I will begin my training to do real work, and I've never felt so motivated.

James 1:27
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

That deserves meditating on.