Surrender it all?

Often in “church speak” you hear of the idea of dying on the cross ourselves along with Jesus. We are to die every day, as Paul says, in order to achieve a life with God. I never really understood that, I mean isn’t being saved a one-and-done thing? That’s what I thought, I thought it was as simple as saying “yes” to God and that was where my effort ended. God has shown me different though, every day I need to hand my life over to Him. I need to make a conscious effort every moment, it’s not just saying I believe once.

So God, I give you my baseball skills, my writing ability, my grades, my relationships…  Everything I have right now at this moment I surrender to God, and I pray that later today I will surrender it again, and tomorrow, and the next day. That’s what this life is about, it’s about putting God first and striving to Him every moment. It sounds hard, but I think the hardest part is being consistent about it. Remembering to dedicate what we have when we are on top, and down low. That’s the tough part, remembering who we are and why we are here.

So try it, try to surrender to God today. Give over everything you have to Him and let Him take control. He knows where you are going, surely He will not lead you astray. I’m a  man of action, I like to do everything myself so this can be especially hard for me. But right now I surrender it all to God, and I will die every day as Paul commands us.

A Few Ramblings

This is a bit of a departure from my Biblical readings, but it is a Biblical post nonetheless. In one of my English classes we are reading Doctor Faustus which was a play written a long, long time ago (1500’s I think). Anyway the play is about a man named Faustus who out of pride and greed for knowledge sells his soul to the devil to achieve greater power than he could ever imagine. Faustus has very little faith, yet he still senses he had made a mistake and the play depicts his transformation as the clock ticks down to the end of his life.

The key question in the play is centered on whether one can repent from anything, and goes further another level to the concept of predestination.

Now, I do not claim any sort of superior knowledge, I am armed with nothing more than a mediocre understanding of the Bible alongside any sort of reasoning abilities found in any 19 year old. My professor asked if Faustus can repent and while I did not speak (because I did not know myself) I think that he can, and here is why.

The devil may have a signed contract for Faustus’ soul, yet the devil still has to play by the rules of the universe, and that is a universe created by God. God is infinitely more powerful than any curse from the devil and I firmly believe that He can break through any sort of bind the devil has on us. Does that mean we are free to do as we please? Well, repentance starts in your heart, and if you take a path away from God don’t expect your heart to repent so easily. Faustus never repented because he didn’t think it was possible, I think if he tried he would find God’s power to be more than enough to save his soul.

That brings us to the idea of predestination: was Faustus unable to repent because of his pride, or was he destined to be condemned? I’ve touched on the idea of predestination before and I am not about to confront centuries of church doctrine. All I know from my own life was that I was unsaved as a child and God found me and picked me up. I chose to draw to Him when He found me, I’m sure I could have done the opposite but that doesn’t matter to me. Whether I was destined to be called to God I simply don’t know, I do know that I was not born saved, rather I was born in circumstances that really didn’t inspire any thoughts of greatness towards my life.

I think the biggest barrier for me embracing predestination is that it essentially means there are people out there born to die in hell, and that is not what Jesus’ sacrifice means to me. I think anyone can be saved, but it all hangs on what they choose. I’m sure God knew where I would end up I often ask Him to reveal His plan for my life, but I don’t think that He had that complete control over the choice I made.

Still I don’t quite know, because recently God plucked me from despair because, I believe, I still have much work to do here at Holy Cross. Did I choose to follow Him again or was it all predestined? I fear this post has more questions than answers, but it is important to ask these questions and it is okay to not understand the answers.

Done with Leviticus!

I just finished Leviticus and am no reading Numbers, which is the next  big section of the Jewish law. It really has been interesting to read the old law alongside the new covenant made through Jesus’ death and resurrection. I’m not sure if God spurred me to read this part of the Bible at such an interesting time or if it was luck of the draw.

Either way here are some thoughts: Paul gets it right in Romans when he says that the law leads to death. When you don’t know the rules you can’t break them, Adam and Eve condemned themselves simply by gaining the knowledge of the rules. Now the Israelites have all the rules written down for them, there are no excuses anymore. It’s a pretty interesting development in God’s relationship with man, before things were pretty loosely held together, now we have the full requirements to be in God’s presence. The problem is that now that we have the rules we cannot help but break them because we are imperfect while God is perfect.

People talk a lot about the “New Testament God” versus the “Old Testament God,” as if there are two distinct personalities. I don’t quite see it that way, I see the Old Testament as the Israelites asking for rules, kings, and freedom and God giving it to them. The Israelites wanted formality so God gave it to them, and they fell under it. God gave the Israelites hundreds of chances to turn back to Him yet He only received continued rejection. Then He sent Jesus because giving the Israelites what they asked for was just not working. Instead God came down Himself and literally saved the Israelites from the mess they made, which is why we now are blessed with salvation if we choose to follow.

Some say that Leviticus is obsolete and while I certainly do not pay much attention to whether I am eating clean animals or what to do about mildew, I don’t see it as a book to be thrown out or ignored. It is crucial to understanding God’s standards of perfection and speaks volumes about the development of the relationship between God and man. It may not feature the poetry of Psalms or the excitement of Judges but check it out if you get a chance. 

I think I know what I need to do

Posts on Biblical thoughts will come soon, for now here is another quick reflective post to build off of my previous one. It’s weird to start from the beginning again, eight years have gone by and I’m still at square one, but I guess that’s the exciting part about life, it’s always a journey and anything can happen.

I guess I had better start things off right as I continue on my journey, and that means going back to God, where it all began.

My family has been going through a crisis lately, I’ll just come right out and say it. Things have not been what they should be and it has caused me to start asking a lot of questions, only to find out I had very few answers. In my pride I thought I was on top of it all; it’s amazing, you memorize a few dozen Bible verses, write a blog on theology, and you think you’re all set. Nope, God allowed a massive hurt into my life and I found myself struggling to explain it away in a neat little theological package. I found a great amount of satisfaction from my former pride, I was on top, I was the “golden boy” the American dream; smart, athletic, God-fearing, but then one thing came my way, and I met my match.

To put it simply, I’m a 19 year old kid, that’s all. I have no power, no strength, nothing apart from God. The more I try to build myself up as some sort of superman who can beat anything, the more I hurt myself. So please pray for me, wherever you are whatever you are doing. Right now I’m admitting I do not have a handle on everything in my life, and I readily admit that I need God to fix this mess that I have become tied into. I think that was the hardest thing for me, I always wanted to believe that I was stronger, better, faster than anything that came my way. I thought that in reading the Bible and going to church I could kick down anything in my way, but I can’t because at the end of the day I’m just a kid.

Eight years ago I prayed to God that I would give my life to Him and follow Him, well I guess I need to remember what that promise means. Our lives are not our own, no matter how hard we may try to force our own plans or perceptions of how things should be, we can’t forget that we are not the ones writing our story, God is. In a way I’m glad about what happened, sure the pain was too much to bear at times, but through it God was able to show me just how proud I really am, and how far I am from the man He wants me to be. Maybe instead of fighting it and reverting to anger I should just let Him take control, and let His healing hands make a new heart in me. I’ll have to give a lot of things up but they are worth it.

Still Day One

When I was a young boy, way before God found me, all I wanted to be was what I am now. I wanted to be big and strong, smart, a good athlete, a leader. Over the years God has given me exactly what I’ve always wanted; I have an internship with a newspaper, I’m the leader of one of the fastest growing clubs at Holy Cross, I’m playing in an amateur baseball league. Life couldn’t get any better for me, yet there is something missing: God.

All my life I live this battle to be the best; I fight and claw my way to the top only to find that having what I wanted is boring, I need something else. Sure I believed in God, sure I devoted my life to Him but I didn’t hand over my ego and pride. Wanting to be my best is not bad at all, relentlessly pursuing perfection at my expense is. I will run myself straight into the ground, my enemies can just watch as I become my own undoing.

Currently God has thrust me straight into “the kiln” to build off of an earlier analogy. God has essentially taken my word and requested I back it up. I talk the talk, now it is time to walk the walk. My former pain and loneliness was replaced by denial, then anger, then confusion, and now I sit in the school library not really knowing what to do, but knowing that there is an end to my story.

It was eight years ago that God found me, He saved me for a reason (as I said before) and has a good work planned for me. I strayed a few times, and fought, but He never let me go. In FCA I see the reason I became a Christian in the first place, it was all about finding the love of God and sharing it with others. It was about believing in something worth believing in, fighting a battle that wouldn’t go down in vain. I’ll keep fighting, heck I might write a book some day, but for now it is not the end but the beginning of my journey. God is not done with me, He’s not even close. Eight years in and it’s still day one.

Update

I realize it has been a long while since I last posted. I had forgotten to post our latest study in FCA last Monday and completely neglected my usual round of posting on Good Friday and Easter. This is not because I am not thinking, rather I have been thinking a lot. I've been thinking so much that I cannot really put my thoughts to print, for some reason the bridge between my brain and my hands is broken and there is no better way to put it. 

When God picked me up He had big plans for me; He had plans that I could never dream of. Looking at my life it truly is amazing, God has followed through time and time again, yet my own weakness and shortcomings have prevented me from fully achieving His purpose. He hasn't given up on me though, He never does and that is something I never will fully understand. Why does He love me so much? It's a question I continually approach yet never really ask, I guess the real answer is that He loves me because He made me, and that is a bond that can't be broken.

I used to pray that God would help me return to how things were before I got in this whole mess, now I'm praying that He keeps leading me down the road I'm on and that He does a new thing in me. Wherever I go I know that I haven't been there before, and that one day I will look back and know why I went through what I'm going through now. It's not so much pain or anger any more, those two terrors are fading in my mind as I find a new sense of strength. Now it's a matter of what to do with my new strength, it's a matter of understanding who I am, why I'm here, and what I am to do.

I do miss writing on this blog, honestly I really do. The problem with writing though is that I need an idea, and right now they jumble and confuse themselves beyond even my ability to put my thoughts to pen.