1 Corinthians 4:5

"So don't make judgments about anyone ahead of time--before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due." 1 Corinthians 4:5 (NLT)

Just another expanded version of "Do not judge" (Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37), but it really got me thinking about judgment. I must say, it's always been a command that I've had trouble wrapping my head around, let along following. "Do not judge"--what are we supposed to do about sin, then? Ignore it? I'm often told to condemn the sin without condemning the sinner. How do you do that in real life? What's the Biblical precedent for that? (for instance, maybe Jesus refusing to condemn the adulterous woman for her adultery by throwing a stone at her but still being willing to tell her to stop sinning? See John 7:53-8:11) I used to often wonder how a loving God could condemn us for our our sin, but I think now that he loves us too much to allow us to destroy ourselves through sin, and that He hates sin too much to allow it to go uncondmened (and perhaps unpunished?). And what about yourself? May you judge yourself? How do you know what you're doing wrong if you don't think about it and judge yourself? OK, that question is actually rather simple--God tells you. And right before the verse above, Paul says, "I don't even trust my own judgment on this point. My conscience is clear, but that doesn't prove I'm right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide" (1 Corinthians 3-4, NLT). Even with ourselves, we can't judge well; we must allow God to do it.

Ultimately, we are not to judge because only God can know what's in a person's heart, what they've experienced, why they did what they did. Only He knows whether a person had the right motives, maybe even whether they sinned or not. After all, God may forbid me to do something but not forbid it to someone else. And that's what Paul is saying in this verse.

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I read that verse in 1 Corinthians early in the day, before I went to work at my new job. I feel like God was trying to warn me, and I unfortunately just didn't heed His warnings at all. I went to work. There are two groups of workers, half of which look really punk, weird, whatever. The other half looks more normal and acts more what I would call normal, with lots of joking and whatever. I'm ashamed to say, I picked the normal half and almost ignored the other half. Then I started judging the "normal" half and how shallow they are. Lord, please forgive me. Please help me to act according to Your will tomorrow, not mine.

Also, I tried out a new Christian group and during the meeting this quote was brought up (it's from The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, which is a series of letters from one demon to another advising him about how best to tempt/destroy this man's soul and therefore send him to hell). Here, Screwtape is advising Wormwood about how to turn this man away from the church because of the hypocrisy/unpleasantness he sees or thinks he sees there. He writes, "All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question 'If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?' You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won't come into his head." (from the 3rd letter, if anyone wants to go look it up or read more). What a vital question to ask yourself when you start judging people: "If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?" May I remember it more.

Summer Goals

Time for a check-up!

1) Volunteer I volunteered once this week with my church, helping to make Vacation Bible School decorations.
2) 2 million grains on freerice I have kept steadily working towards this. I have a little more than 800,000 grains. However, through most of the week I have a bad attitude about spending so much of my time on freerice. This attitude is something I want to work on in this coming week.
3) Summer reading list I finished a book on my reading list, started another one, and continued working on a third book. I also read three books this past week that are not on my summer reading list.
4) Book reviews I have reviewed every book that I finished this week.
5) Reflect more I don't think that I reflected more on my Bible readings, perhaps even a bit less than I did last week. I also think that I reflected less on my life in general in the past week.
6) After graduation options I spent about an hour this week studying for the GRE.
7) Sleep! I did not in fact sleep as much as I should have in the past week.
8) Exercise I only exercised once this week. This is definitely something I need to work on.
9) Work on thesis I have started to read one of the books I plan to use for my thesis.
10) Declutter I worked on my room (it looks a lot better!) and finished my purse.
11) Scholarships I spent a lot of time on that this week. I applied to nine scholarships, as well as creating a list of scholarships I should apply to, the deadline for the scholarship, and other information. My mother also challenged me to apply to 50 scholarships this summer, which I intend to aim for. I've applied to 10 so far!
12) Pray for others Last Sunday, I promised God and myself that I would spend 10 minutes every day praying for others. I reached this goal six out of the last seven days. However, most of this time was spent praying, getting distracted, praying, getting distracted, and so on. I would like to work more on being able to pray for longer periods of time without getting distracted.

I also got a summer job this week. It's full time, so posts may be scarce from now on (although hopefully not!). My goal is to still try to complete all of these summer goals. It may be impossible, but that seems to be what God wants from me. Maybe the extra challenge/time crunch of it will force me to be much more efficient about it than I was last week.

The Design Revolution, continued

The wrap-up of my earlier comments (view them here) about The Design Revolution, by William A. Dembski, more about my spiritual rather than scientific reactions.

Overall, I found Dembski's argument convincing, especially on a spiritual level--God created the world, and why couldn't He do it in a subtle way? If anything, the subtle way is almost more awe-inspiring: God has been subtly working to create humans for the past 3.7 billion years (or 4.6 billion if you include the creation of the earth, or 14.6 billion if you include the creation of the universe). That's pretty cool!

Actually, ever since I started reading this book, I've been repeatedly coming across Bible verses about how God created the earth.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old received divine approval. By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear." Hebrews 11:1-3
"Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." Romans 1:20
"Thou art the Lord, thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and thou preservest all of them; and the host of heaven worships thee." Nehemiah 9:6
I think what's most important of all is the knowledge that God created the earth and the universe, not the knowledge of how He did it.

So I'll conclude by saying that I found this book very thought-provoking, and recommending it to anyone who may have questions about intelligent design.

Nehemiah 9

A prayer. Most of the prayer is actually just the history of God and the Israelites. They did that a lot, and today it finally hit me why. They were praising God for His faithfulness in the past, and also through that reassuring themselves that He would keep His promises by looking at all the times He did so in the past.

Then I started thinking about how I don't really do that when I pray. I mean, sometimes I'll pray about a Bible verse I just read, or I'll pray about Jesus or mention that God created the world or are love or something. Is that the same thing? There is something good about reminding yourself of God's goodness and past actions. Should I do it? Yes, I think I will try it out.

The Design Revolution

Today I'm going to do something a bit different. I just finished reading The Design Revolution, by William A. Dembski. It's about the idea of intelligent design, in the form of a series of questions that critics of the idea would or have asked him about the idea of intelligent design. I just wanted to write down my thoughts about the book here.

A huge theme in this book is the dogmatism of science today, especially when it comes to evolution. Scientists believe that evolution is true. Period. In many ways the ideas of a dogmatic science may seem counter-intuitive--after all, isn't the idea of science to reach for new knowledge in an unbiased way?--but I think it's true, at least to a certain extent. It's certainly true of scientists and creationism (which is separate than intelligent design, which simply states that some being created or shaped life as we know it)--every scientist I've ever known speaks of creationism as really stupid. Scientists try to think of themselves as open-minded, but they often have a very set thought pattern. This is true not just in their thinking about intelligent design versus evolution, but in everything.

Another theme was the complexity of life. Dembski argues that irreducible complexity--a system where taking out any one part of the system makes the system unable to function--is a reliable way to spot intelligent design. The idea behind this is that such a system, where everything is vitally important, could not gradually evolve--it must have come about just the way it is, because no other combination of parts makes a functioning whole. On one level that makes sense--in fact, a similar technique is used in lots of other things too, like archaeology and cryptology--and on another level I doubt it. How can we infer anything about a designer we know nothing about? He/she/it (I'm speaking here of a purely theoretical designer, not the God that I ultimately believe to be the designer) is so far beyond our understanding that how can we infer/decide anything about him/her/it? (I suppose you could make a similar argument about Christianity, but we have the guidance of God. He spoke to us and told us about Himself. How much would we have known otherwise, though?) Dembski did address this point, by pointing out that archaeologists and cryptologists and so on don't need to know anything about the person who made the artifact/code they're analyzing to be able to realize that it's been designed, and I suppose the same is true here. Also, of course, science shouldn't just shy back because of the possibility that they won't understand or that they're wrong, because there's always that possibility.

Irreducible complexity, Dembski argues, is something that has not been adequately explained by evolutionists. It's true that a hypothesis is not the same as proof that something happened the way the hypothesis says it did. But Dembski also argues that evolutionists need to provide proof that some irreducibly complex system evolved gradually, as they claim irreducible complexity did evolve. How would they prove that? It is, after all, impossible to un-evolve an organism back to the way it was X million years ago, after all. The lack of proof and provability to a lot of evolutionary biology, especially the formation of species and macroevolution in general, is a huge problem for evolution. All of the proof for macroevolution is based on inferences, mostly from evidence like the incomplete fossil record, DNA, and geographical location/history. The problem with inferences is that if you don't understand the situation as well as you think you do, you can be so completely wrong and still think that all the evidence points your way.

And it is true that so much of macroevolution especially is still a complete mystery to biologists, whether they want to admit it or not. Dembski even goes so far as to claim that it is a completely unproven theory. My first response to that was definitely to get all defensive, but in a way it's true. Certain amounts of species formation has been observed by biologists--for instance in apple and hawthorn flies, which used to be a single species. Once the apple tree was introduced to North America, some flies switched to feeding on them. Over time, this switch appears to have led to the isolation, and possibly complete splitting off into a separate species by, the apple-feeding flies (For more information see Berkeley's "Sympatric Speciation" and Martin G. Kelly's "As the Worm Turns: Speciation and the Apple Maggot Fly"). However, this is a short-term example. Yes, there are other examples, but just because one species of fly appears to be able to split into two species without obvious help doesn't mean that a plant or animal could evolve from a bacteria, or birds from reptiles, or any of the other major evolutionary transitions that have occurred in the history of life could have occurred, without help. Yes, there is most definitely proof that macroevolution and the formation of species has occurred. That doesn't mean that those new species arose purely because of evolutionary mechanisms, or even because of evolutionary mechanisms at all. So many new species and new innovations, like flight in birds and flowers and insect pollination, seem to have just suddenly appeared, and no one really has any idea how or why. The typical explanation is that much of evolution is driven by ecological factors, many or all of which it would be impossible to determine from the fossil record, or that the fossil record is spotty enough that intermediate fossils don't exist or haven't been found yet. And maybe at least some of that's true. But the more I've learned about such problems, the more I think that something must have pushed or nudged to get things to how they are now, or at least on the path to become so. Take the evolution of flight in birds. No one can really think of any good intermediate reason for the reptiles that evolved into birds to have gone from having four legs to having two legs and two wings. Wouldn't the intermediate have been awkward, to say the least? It's clear that they two are related, evolutionarily, but again that doesn't prove that evolution was the mechanism that caused reptiles to evolve into birds. (Perhaps I should point out here that when I say 'evolution', I mean completely random evolution with no input at all from any outside source, ie the designer ie God)

Which brings up another really interesting, and I found really convincing point, and that is the tendency of life to go from less to more complex. Evolutionists always explain it as the way things are, just a tendency of evolution, but that really doesn't make sense. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that the entropy (ie randomness, and presumably also organization/complexity) of a system (such as the universe) is always increasing, and the only way to increase the organization is to put energy into doing so. Why would a completely random evolution favor an increase in complexity? It doesn't make sense. Especially since increases in complexity in the history of life almost always seem to just appear, almost out of nowhere. Why would God want to create a world full of complex organisms? Did He really create the whole universe and history of life just for us humans? If so, why go to all the trouble? Why not just create humans and the earth, as He wanted them, at the beginning, like Genesis says? Of course, I have no idea, I was just wondering. If anything, I'd say that if you look at how natural selection acts on organisms, it favors simplicity. Parasites especially tend to become extremely simple over time. Natural selection has been proven to be able to modify existing structures and behaviors, but it has never been observed creating entirely new structures (although it is often argued, and there is some support for this, that most "new" structures are actually pre-existing, modified structures).

One problem I did have with the book was Dembski's criticism of evolutionary biology for its lack of ability to make predictions. Biology is not physics or mathematics, where every theory has a working, fairly accurate formula. Life is not predictable like numbers are. We understand how natural selection works (and natural selection is a proven phenomenon, which Dembski admits as well), but we do not understand how an organism's body works; it's much too complex. We also don't particularly understand how ecosystems work. But it's these two things that are interacting, because with natural selection the ecosystem is one of the things that is putting pressure on the organism and its body. So how could we possibly predict what would happen? (Is this the point Dembski is trying to make?)

Another, more scientific criticism I had was the fact that Dembski totally ignored several aspects of evolution. Evolution occurs through four mechanisms: mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, and selection (Wikipedia's article "Evolution" is actually pretty thorough, and mentions a few other evolutionary forces as well). Only selection, and only natural selection at that, were even mentioned (there's also artificial and sexual selection--possibly because neither are particularly random, unlike the other evolutionary forces), except for a few brief mentions of mutation. This did surprise me a bit, not least because all four of these mechanisms are essentially completely random processes (which was a large, and I thought rather successful part of his argument--come on, how likely or logical is it that nothing would evolve into a bacteria would evolve into a plant, animal, fungus, or protist completely because of random processes? Those are all extremely complex organisms, after all!). I think that the other evolutionary forces should have been addressed at least a bit more.

Wow. This turned into a really long post! Thanks for bearing with me, and I hope it mostly made sense (if not let me know!). I still have more to say, but I'm done for now. I think I'll post more on this tomorrow, more on the spiritual rather than scientific side.

Nehemiah 3

Most of this chapter is a list of names and places. My first reaction was to sigh--there's a lot of those lists--but this one was different. It was a list of people/groups and what part of Jerusalem's wall they rebuilt. It's pretty amazing, when you think about it, that a group of refugees, basically, managed to build their city. And they did it by all working together and each rebuilding their small part. Another example of each person doing their small, seemingly hopeless part and God making it work out.

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As a matter of fact, a few hours after originally writing this, God brought this home to me, in perhaps the opposite way of the chapter mentioned above. I found myself up late, very late (as you can all see from when I'm posting this), and regretting it very much. Staying up late like this is something that I know God doesn't like, something that I regret every time I do it no matter what the reason (although some reasons are better than others), and something that is ultimately harmful to me. Not that that stops me from doing it, something I've been wrestling with on and off for several years. Tonight, as I was thinking about the seemingly impossibility of bringing myself around to common sense, God said to me, "I would never ask you to do something that was impossible if you trust in Me." It may seem hopeless, but if I work with God on this, He can work it out. An incredibly comforting thought.

Summer Goals

Time to check up on my summer goals and how I'm doing with them!

1) Volunteer I've still made no progress with this goal.
2) Get to 2 million grains on freerice I've been working very hard towards this goal all week and have reached a little more than 700,000 grains, which puts me well on the way to reaching this goal before the end of the summer.
3) Summer reading list I finished Emma (and very much enjoyed it), and am well on my way to finished three other books that are also on the list (I tend to read multiple books at once)--a book of Hawaiian myths, an Arthurian epic poem, and a book about intelligent design. The only stain on my attempts to reach this goal this week is that yesterday especially, I read just to do something, rather than to learn about the world around me, expand my mind, and glorify God. I enjoyed the reading much less and got much less out of it. On the other hand, I also really really thought about some of the readings that I did this week.
4) Book reviews So far I have written a book review of every book I've finished. I'm even starting to plan the reviews of a few of the books I'm currently reading.
5) Reflect more I think I reflected on Bible readings about the same amount as I did last week, a decent amount but not as much as I'd like to reach.
6) After graduation options I got a GRE study book and made myself a study schedule.
7) Sleep! I did rather badly on this one this week. I slept rather less than I needed.
8) Exercise I went for two walks and helped a friend move out of her apartment. Not as much as I would like, perhaps, but not bad.
9) Work on thesis All I did for this was to make a schedule for myself, to hopefully encourage myself to do more work on this next week.
10) Declutter Nothing.
11) Scholarships I applied to a few simple ones, made a list of possibilities and due dates, and just found several promising search sites.
12) Pray for others On one of my walks this week, I spent a lot of the time praying for others. The church service I attended today was also all about mission, so I spent some time during and after the service praying for others. I really felt like God was condemning me for my lack of concern for others today. I really want to focus on this one next week.

Weeds

In church today the parable of the mustard seed was read. I've always thought of it in terms of God's power to take something small, like what we can do for Him or offer to His kingdom, and turn it into something large and amazing. Today in church it was interpreted a bit differently. It was pointed out that mustard plants were fast-growing weeds, especially in fields. They would spread and cover an entire field incredibly quickly (dandelions were suggested as the modern equivalent)--so God can work incredibly quickly with the small amount that we can offer him. This, in turn, suggested to me the idea of invasive species. Invasive species often invade fields, because they are bare and easy to grow in, and are unwanted both by the farmer and by society at large. Is God and His word a sort of invasive species here on earth? Unwanted to worldly residents? Something they attempt to eradicate but can never quite manage? Something that isn't native, in some sense doesn't belong? It seemed like a pretty good comparison to me.

Fear

Today I was thinking about fear in my life. I used to be afraid of many things--driving on the highway, for instance, and calling people I didn't know on the phone. God has helped me work through a lot of these fears (OK, by 'work through' I mean God telling me, "Go do that. Yes, I'm right here and it will be fine. Now go do it!"), and the release has been amazing.

Now, I spent a bit of time feeling all proud of myself, thinking about how awesome I am, etc. Then I realized how many things I am still afraid of. For one thing, looking for a job. I'm afraid to put myself out there like that, and afraid of the inevitable rejection. Also a serious romantic relationship, and letting go of certain things to God. Realizing this depressed me, almost. I mean, of course I'm not as awesome as I'd like to think, and I do need to work on my humility, but realizing all these things I was still afraid of was rather disheartening. If anything, it feels like all the simpler fears, like highway driving, have been removed, only to reveal the real, large fears, like job interviews and relationships. There's still a lot of work to be done on me and my fears.

Listless

I had a job interview today. I feel like it didn't go well. I feel like this reflects me as a person, even though I know that's stupid. I've just been feeling listless and restless all day. Lord, please help me to work through this.

2 Chronicles 26

The reign of Uzziah. This story (and a few of the ones before it) are a warning. Uzziah started out very well, with a heart for God. Zechariah taught him God's ways and helped him to learn about Him. But after Zechariah died, Uzziah grew away from God--he grew proud, and stopped trusting in God.

Warning! Just because I follow God now doesn't mean I always will. There is no mystical rule that says once you follow God it's forever. I have to always strive for God. If I grow proud because of the success He gives me, and stop depending on Him, I will fall. Also, good God-seeking friends--just the influence of the surroundings, really--are important! Uzziah was doing fine until Zechariah died.

Questions

Some questions I've recently been considering about my faith:

1) What is prayer? I recently ran across the idea that God won't do anything about a problem if someone doesn't pray about it--is this true? What should I be praying for?

2) What is the nature of trials in our lives? Are they sent from God to test/strengthen us? Are they from the devil? Are they simply a result of our broken world?

3) What is the role of gender in Christianity? Are women supposed to be more submissive, nurturing, caring, only have a family, etc? Are men supposed to be "in charge"? In Jesus' actions, I don't necessarily see support for this--He seems to have treated men and women equally, actually--but there is absolutely support for this in both Old and New Testament writings. Is it legitimate to reject their teachings on this subject because of their inherently misogynistic culture?

4) How legitimate is it to reject parts of the Bible? For instance a seven-day creation, teachings on women's inequality. What about when different writings contradict themselves? For instance in its views of trials--some see them as punishment for evil-doing, others as a part of life and something that needs to be persevered through.

Romans 6

This chapter just really struck me today as being very, very true. Paul speaks of our sinful nature being crucified with Christ, slavery to sin vs. to righteousness, our new life, obedience. I was especially struck by two things: firstly, the idea of being in slavery to sin. That struck me as a really good metaphor, actually. When you're not a Christian, you may see yourself as free from all the silly rules of Christianity, but really you're not free at all because you have no control over your own sinful nature. You sin because you can't help yourself, and often don't even realize it. I'm not saying that this isn't also true of Christians, because it is--Christians are sinful creatures too, after all. But Christians have God to fall back on and to condemn them and to help them fight against sin.

Secondly, I was really struck by Paul's use of the opposite metaphor (if I can call it that), of being slaves of righteousness. I know I've read this chapter before, but it's never struck me before the way it did today. We not only should do what's right, we need to do what's right--Christ bought us, paid for us with His blood and death, body and soul. When He asks us to do something, it's not a casual order--it's something we need to do.

I know, the idea of being a slave is a little uncomfortable, to say the least. Aren't we supposed to be free in Christ? In many ways we are--God allows us the choice, after all, to follow Him or not. He doesn't force us to do anything: we have free will, and He will love us no matter what we do. But the idea of being a slave means we have no choice, right? Well, maybe (a slave could disobey, after all, it just wouldn't be pleasant for them. I suppose rather similar to a Christian's situation, because we can disobey, but sin is not pleasant). But being a slave also means that you have a duty to do every single thing you're asked to do by your master--true of Christians. I suppose the imagery also acknowledges our inferiority and debt to God and Jesus--we are so far below Him, after all, and have a debt to Him that we can never ever repay.

Check up

Firstly, I thought I'd review my summer goals and how I'm doing with them. This is something that I want to make a commitment to doing every Sunday.

1) volunteer somewhere I've made absolutely no progress towards this goal--I haven't looking into volunteering anywhere, or even really thought about it.
2) 2 million grains on freerice I have been working towards this goal, answering a decent number of questions almost every day. However, I have been doing it rather grudgingly. I pray for the generosity to give of my time willingly and use the time to pray or reflect, rather than wish the time would go by faster as I have been doing.
3) finish my summer reading list I am satisfied with my progress on this goal. I finished two books (although I also added two more to my list, so maybe they don't count!) and am currently reading Emma by Jane Austen.
4) book review of each book I read So far I've kept to this goal.
5) reflect more on Bible readings Unfortunately hasn't been true of every time I've read the Bible this week, but I am reflecting more and longer on what I read.
6) after-graduation options All I've done for this goal was register for the GRE.
7) sleep a lot! Overall, this has been the case.
8) exercise I went for two walks and one hike this week.
9) thesis Nope. I've done absolutely nothing to prepare for this.
10) declutter I've also done nothing for this goal.
11) scholarship I have not worked towards this goal, either.

I am actually satisfied with how much I accomplished this last week. It was very much a week of recuperation rather than a week in which I wanted to get anything done. It was a wonderful week, although of course it had its ups and downs.

I went to a prayer labyrinth again today. It felt good, to spend so much time just being with God, thinking and praying and working through issues, or at least acknowledging them to myself and to God.

Secondly, I wanted to reflect on the last school year. This was an activity that I performed with my Christian fellowship a few weeks ago. I wanted to wait to do it purely for myself until after the semester was over and a bit of time had passed, to hopefully allow myself to gain a bit of perspective. The questions are: What have been some of the highs/lows of the year? What has God taught you this year? How has He shown you love this year?

My fall semester was very difficult, emotionally and spiritually. It was just after I'd just come back to Christ, so I was re-learning many of the disciplines involved with being a Christian. I fasted for the first time, which was overall a wonderful, focusing experience. It was difficult emotionally because I felt very lonely--I was far from my family, living with strangers, no friends and no people around me that I particularly wanted to be close with, for much of the time no Christians to interact with. This was challenging for me, but it also deepened my relationship with God. He was literally the only one I could turn to when I was lonely or hurt or needed help. One of the most wonderful parts of the last school year was spending time with Him, learning how freeing and peaceful it is to trust Him with everything, wandering around just with Him and viewing Him not just as my God but also as a friend. Of course, I also struggled with our relationship, things He asked me to do, and so on, and sometimes I just felt so depressed. I remember one day in particular, when I had to walk home in the rain and then I got lost (did I mention it was dark out?). My emotions were boomeranging--one minute I was at peace after walking past a beautiful church, the next minute I felt sad and depressed in a way I can't really describe, the next I was worrying about how I ever knew when God was really speaking to me. Overall, however, it was a very good school year. I feel that I have grown in faith in ways I never would have imagined a year ago. A year ago I wasn't even a Christian!

What has God taught me? There's been so much! The first lesson I thought of was about me and my reading--how I can read for God, use my reading to learn more about Him, or about His world, or just as a springboard to think about a topic that He wants me to think about. I've become more discerning in choosing what I read, more conscious of the fact that I'm learning from what I read whether I want it or not, as well as feeling less embarrassed about the fact that there are some kinds of books that I just don't want to read.

A lot about Him and how to stay close to Him. He has taught me to talk to Him in ways that I never would have thought of before. Sometimes I really do talk to Him as if He's standing right in front of me. I ask Him what I should do about a lot of things, even things that may seem silly or unimportant like what I should wear in the morning. I still don't pray enough, I think, about things that aren't myself; hopefully that will be something that He'll work with me on in the future.

Most importantly of all, I think, I've been taught over and over again that humans are sinful creatures. We are not perfect and never can be. If I'm left to myself, my instinct or whatever is to do evil. This is something that I've been made aware of in several ways--in trying to undo the bad habits that I unwittingly picked up when I wasn't Christian, when I wasted time or thought of stories even when I knew it was wrong, just watching people and the world around me. I am naturally sinful, and the only real thing we can do about that is turn to God and ask for His help. In the past I've had trouble turning my knowledge that God wants to help me into actual action against sin. But God also taught me that we humans have free will; He allows us to make choices. We need to make the choices: whether to follow Him or not, whether to resist sin or not, whether to read the Bible or not. God will respect our free will and love us no matter what choice we make, but He will also not change the consequences of our actions. If a choice leads us deeper into sin, or leads us closer to Him, He will not change that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we can't expect God to just make the choice to resist sin for us. We have to make that decision. Where God comes in is in telling us which decision to make, and in giving us the strength to make that decision, no matter how difficult it may be.

I am sinful. That is something that I think isn't said enough, often. I am sinful. I am not perfect. But Jesus died for me to wash away my sins and imperfections. He wanted something more than sin for me--He wanted perfection. God has shown/told me that He wants me to strive for perfection in everything I do, no matter how impossible it may be or seem. God wants perfection from us.

Romans 4

Paul describes how we are saved through faith and belief, not through works or circumcision. As I read, I thought about Martin Luther and Calvin and many of the other early Protestants, and how they really emphasized this (although thinking more, it might have been grace, not faith, that they really emphasized, especially Calvin). When I learned about this in history, it was portrayed very much as if Luther or Calvin or whoever had a brilliant idea that no one else had ever thought of before, and that was part of their popularity. Yes, I realize now that's ridiculous, on so many levels. But what I wanted to say about that was that it's not true that the idea originated with any of those men; it was already in the Bible, and they were just emphasizing something different than the Catholic Church was.

This chapter also talks a lot about Abraham and his faith. I must say, I don't actually like Abraham that much, although not for any reason that I could put my finger on. But Paul's description really made me realize and admire Abraham's amazing faith.

Stories

I have really been struggling lately with my stories. Over and over again, I will get flashes of how whatever I'm doing or thinking could be related to one of my stories, how this or that character would react in the current situation or if this or that related situation were to occur. I hate it! When I came home, I literally had not thought of a story for probably at least two weeks. It may not sound like long, but for me that was a huge victory. It's frustrating to see that accomplishment go up in smoke and have to fight again to be story-free.

I can think of several reasons why the urge to think about my stories is back, but I'm not sure I care, really. None of them are relevant to avoiding situations in which I am tempted. All I can do in this case is trust in God to sustain me and resist as hard as I can. As I heard in a song today, He "is the strength in our weakness".

2 Chronicles 15-16

The story of Asa, king of Judah. Really sad, actually. The prophet Asarja came to him and told him about God. Asa repented of his evil ways, and had a heart that was only for God. He got rid of all the other gods in Judah and had a long reign of peace. And that peace destroyed him. When trouble came, in the form of war with Israel, Asa trusted in the king of Aram rather than in God. Why do we want peace and quiet so much? Why does God give it to us? The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is full of examples where people get rich and everything goes well because God blesses them, and then they forget about Him. David, Solomon, Asa--and me, of course. I'm guilty as well. Being a sinful creature can be so frustrating sometimes. It takes constant work to stay near God, and often challenges as well as to remind me that God is Lord, not me. I am in many ways struggling against the impossible.

But you know what? I'm OK with that. I like a challenge, especially with God at my side, guiding me and teaching me. More than that, though, I'm working for the right thing. I've seen the good things God has done in my life, and I know that God is good. I want to know Him better, serve Him better, love Him better.

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What is the difference between hypocrisy and faith?

It may seem like a simple question, but as I was writing the second paragraph of this post, I suddenly just... lost all connection with what I was writing. Suddenly I didn't feel what I was writing. Is that bad? I've definitely run into trouble in the past because I've stressed out way too much about how much of my faith I didn't feel. But I kept writing. Was that hypocrisy--writing something I suddenly didn't feel because I thought it was the "right" thing to write--or faith--writing what I believed even if right that second I couldn't feel it--? Isn't faith keeping what you believe even when you don't feel it, following God even when you're not sure, staying steady even when you don't want to? Would that make my decision to keep writing faith? When my feelings suddenly stopped, I stopped writing too. I didn't want to write something I didn't believe. Do I need to feel something to believe it? Isn't belief, like faith, acting on something even if your feelings don't agree every second of your life? But maybe " I didn't want to write something I didn't believe" was the wrong way to say that. Maybe instead of "believe" I should have written "feel". And are our feelings so important? Don't our feelings so often mislead us? Our feelings often tell us to put ourselves first, to ignore God, to do what feels good. And I certainly don't believe in doing whatever my feelings tell me to do. But to a certain extent I do have this belief that I should feel my faith, feel it and not just believe it. Is that a true idea? Is that something God wants us to believe? I'm not sure I think it is, honestly--our feelings are so easy to mislead and trick, after all. At the same time, it's not like we can just ignore our feelings entirely. If we do so, we risk letting them fester inside us until they become a problem in and of themselves. Lord, please guide me in how I listen to my feelings and how my feelings intercept with my faith.

Reflection

Since being at home, I've realized that I think much less here. There's no need to. There's no need to work or to turn in assignments, to strive for perfection, to do much of anything, really. I created a list of goals for the summer in an attempt to give myself a purpose and something to strive for, but so far it hasn't much worked. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself; maybe I should just accept the fact that the first week or two will be pure relaxation. But that doesn't mean that I should abandon my spiritual strivings, and to some degree I've found that that's true. But I can't just float along on my spiritual journey and expect nothing to change! I need to put in effort and thought and time in order to expand my relationship with God and allow Him to work through me. I feel like I'm not doing that. I feel like I'm just existing, in every aspect of my life.

Lord, I pray that You will give my life this summer a sense of purpose, and help me to keep striving for You and for perfection and for whatever else You want for me. Please help me to stay on track and focused on You and what You want for me and my life. Please guide me and comfort me and give me the strength to follow Your will for my life.

Amen.

Preparation

Today, instead of going for a walk, I walked a prayer labyrinth. It was a really interesting experience. At first I really disliked it--walking to nowhere seemed strange, almost distracting, not to mention the birds all around me were really distracting. But once I managed to rise above all that I found it very conducive to reflection. Just following the path without thinking about where I was supposed to go meant that I could focus solely on reflection, while the walking gave my body something to do while I was thinking.

For the first time in a while, I felt at peace with the fact that God wants me to be at home this summer, rather than saying "Thy will be done, Lord" but still feeling upset about it. God presented the summer to me as a time of preparation for next year and afterwards. It gave the summer a sense of purpose. I think one of the things I've really disliked about being home for the summer in the past is the complete lack of purpose in my life--I was really just biding my time until I could go back to doing things in many ways.

Summer Goals

I've been thinking about the goals that I have for this summer.  Here they are, as of right now:
1) volunteer somewhere
2) answer enough questions to donate a total of 2 million grains of rice on freerice.com
3) finish all the books on my summer reading list (which includes Jane Austen, epic poetry, and non-fiction)
4) write a review of every book I read
5) reflect and write more on and about my Bible readings
6) look into after-graduation options
7) sleep a lot!
8) exercise
9) work on thesis
10) declutter
11) work to get a scholarship
12) pray more for others

I pray that God will help me to work towards these goals.

1 Chronicles 29

The conclusion of David's story (again). In verses 10-20, David prays to God, and it was an amazing prayer. It was only the first or second time in 1 Chronicles that I really got a feel for and liked him. I prefer the David story from 2 Samuel. In that one, the writer admits to many of David's mistakes; David seems like a real person to me, one who longs for God but who also falters and sins. Who doesn't, really? And since David is one of the people written about the most in the Bible, we get to hear a lot about him, and his sins--with Bathsheba and Uriel, the census, his handling of his sons--but we also get to hear about God's forgiveness of him, every time.

Miscellaneous

Not much to write about, really. It's finals week, so of course it's completely crazy. I've already had one miracle of a final, so here's hoping the last one will go just as well! I'm trying to deal with the fact that it's almost summer. I think time has been passing differently for me since I've become a Christian again. I'm trying to accept God's will for my summer plans. I'm praying for an acquaintance whose father just died, as well as people taking finals, packing, graduating, going on to summer plans or moving on with their life.