I sincerely hope I don't get overly esoteric during this post. I can guarantee that I will try not to. Ever since Dr. Dawsey got onto me my sophomore year about writing more plainly I've done my best to write in a more easily accessible manner when discussing theological issues. It helps when I place it in a more practical framework, like my little rant on grace a few weeks ago, but its there, and its tough to overcome.
What I find really interesting about this, though it won't have nearly the same impact for all of you, is how this post, before I even started writing it, moved from a place of abstract theological examination to one of personal issues as well. So where did it all start?
Late in the day, while already considering that I should look at going to bed since I have to be at GodWhy at 6:45 for another rafting trip, I had the urge to . . . do more than what I was. I'd worked on the loft (the room over our garage we're renovating) all day and then spent the evening reading. I decided to finally check my email and just felt . . . kind of compelled. So I went to ChristianityToday.com. I was intending to do the daily men's devotional but whenever I go I go through the main site so I can see if there are any features or other articles I want to read. The only one that caught my attention today was titled, "Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?" Having written my final paper in my favorite college course on the subject of homosexuality (as an archetype for a Christian approach to socio-political issues), the pervasive nature of this discussion in our society, and my experiences with current and past gay friends, the article naturally drew my attention.
An interesting subject in its own right, I judged it bordered too closely on politics for me to feel comfortable talking about given my new stand-off approach. But then I read the men's devotional. The title was "Reducing Temptation's Pull" but the grander point was about submitting to God's will. Indeed the response prompt is where I drew this post's title, "An instance in which what God requires has become my desire is . . . ." Indeed I see a pattern here.
I am about to say something unpopular.
There is no way to reconcile homosexuality with a Biblical worldview. At least not one that is consistent. Sorry if that bites you hard and you're angry now. It just is. I won't go into reasons, but suffice it to say, there'd be a long way to go to convince me otherwise, during which you'd have to simultaneously invalidate a number of other sins as from being characterized as such. So we'll take it as a foregone conclusion, because it is, and move on. Because that's not really the point. Don't get caught up here.
See I haven't always felt that way. No, no. When I was in high school I was about as liberal as they come, including believing that we should abolish monetary units. Yeah, no money. Brilliant.
Anyhow, my real point here is that when you come to Christ, you agree to give up everything. Whether you know it or not, whether you do it or not, you are saying that everything you think and do and believe is now under His purview.
If you ever want confirmation of an idea from a Christian viewpoint, expose it to secular society. In my senior year of college I took a class called "Mediated Consumption and Personal Identity" which attempted to examine and explain the development of human personality and behavior. I was the only Christian in the class. And one of only two conservatives. Due to the nature of what we studied every single day was a potential battle, which sometimes I chose to engage in and others I just had to pray. Towards the end of the class I remember having nearly everyone in the class agree that it was wrong for me (i.e. Christians) to vote based on their religious beliefs. Mind you they weren't saying we didn't have a right to vote, simply that our vote shouldn't be a result of our beliefs. I'll point out the absurdity of trying to enforce and idea like that, as well as how it reflects many people's view of the Constitution merely for the sake of humor.
That right there is all the confirmation I need for an idea that should be so intrinsic to faith yet is shockingly common. Christ will not stand for compartmentalization of faith. "If you want Me, you get the whole thing." Christ Himself was not immune from this.
John 6:38
"For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will"
Jesus, even as God, was subject to the Father's will. Should we expect any less for ourselves? Should we expect that any part of our lives should not be the domain of the vine from which we draw life? Is it even possible to truly take from God and yet close off parts of our hearts or minds? When you give your life to Christ, you give it all.
And yet I can see where I compartmentalize this very idea itself.
See there were a few things I left out of my post the other night. Nothing truly intentionally. Some of it was not fully formed yet, some of it just didn't seem important enough, or I just forgot. But given the raising of this issue, they have become important.
I failed to mention the other night that after a hiatus who's length I'm rather fuzzy on, I have begun dreaming again. None in a way I'm anywhere near ready to describe as God breathed, well, perhaps one, but its the idea itself. That I had stopped for a while, and then on Tuesday night, started again.
Where this ties in is how I woke up feeling after my last post. As I laid in bed that night I thought back on my non-interactive episode with the blonde. And I remembered how truly, though certainly not deeply, upset I'd been when I realized I could have talked to her. Mind you I become physiologically uncomfortable with the notion of approaching a girl, more so with one I don't know, and even more so in public. And I'm 75% sure she didn't know Jesus. And I strongly prefer brunettes. And yet this very night I lamented that I'd not tried to set up a date with her.
Which reflects the way I woke up the morning after my last post. Indeed since its been difficult to shake the desire to date. Someone else.
Somewhere inside I'm vaguely aware of what that should mean.
And I remain unconvinced.
So what brought this all up? I got to talking to my friend A-Phil tonight, who asked me how things were. And despite being in fairly high spirits the last few days, and today, I responded with a terribly melancholy discourse. I feel like I have millions of pounds of needing crushing down on me, with what seems like zero direction from God. And what I do get, what could be interpreted as from Him, I don't even want, in one case. And in the other I want it so much that I refuse to believe the collusion of His will and my own.
So here we see my unintentional hypocrisy. I fully recognize the importance, no, the necessity of complete internal and external submission to God. Yet refuse to do so.
Perhaps oddest of all is that I don't feel I'm being inconsistent or lying when I say I'm not hearing anything from Him. I truly feel like I'm not being guided or spoken to, in a time I need it desperately.
Yet I know I can draw near Him. I know that regardless of whether elements of it were true on Tuesday, I couldn't have imagined speaking this way.
And now that I've written this all I'm not sure how much I mean of any of it. I'm leery of posting it for fear of people reading it and thinking that I am in this place this makes it look like I am. Because I'm not. Am I?
How do I know. All I know is that I'm going to pray tomorrow.
I need the Lord to show up soon. I was under the impression that no one died in the last gust of a storm. If so this is an unimaginably long gust. If not . . . than what am I waiting for?
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