Home.
Refuge for my weary soul. Or is it a trap?
I spent today milling about, waking up at ~11 AM to my cellphone going off. Then, devotions (yay!) brunch (scrambled omelette w/o cheese + freshly brewed soymilk)...and then the one thing that I swore I would not do: TV. From there, it was a slippery slope to obsessively reading manga online...and then basically staying in the house, wasting several hours of my young adult life.
It wasn't until after dinner that I got to doing one of my goals for the summer: serious reading for 1 hour+ to edify my mind and soul.
And then, I realized-
A day had passed.
I could count the number of things I did on ONE hand.
I had minimal human contact.
Worse yet, I had minimal God contact.
This reality shocked me out of the summer reverie, the brief honeymoon of going back to my home church and seeing all the parents (not children, mind you) with smiles and updates on what God has been doing in my life-along with advice on colleges.
These next few months will be a test, and perhaps the most grueling one of all: how to maintain spiritual growth and intimacy when I am wrenched away from my beloved fellowship in Houston.
Although I always considered DCFC my church home, it's often been a spiritual wasteland in terms of fellowship for young adults. HCC was not necessarily where I felt most comfortable, but the intimate and life-giving fellowship at Rice has provided me a testament to God's provision in my life. Now that I'm back for four months, it's time to see where God wants me in His kingdom here. I no longer have the excuses to hide from fellowship (aka MCAT), and neither do I have a mandate to start another fellowship here in Dallas (I'll be gone for 6 weeks in the middle). I just know that God wants me here for a reason. He wants me to plug into DCFC and use His blessings for everlasting glory. But how?!
God is faithful, but I am not always so. Yet even when I am faithless, God will continue to be faithful, for He cannot disown Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13)
Today God revealed to me the importance of clinging to Him...and revitalized the desire for me to test my intellectual boundaries in this faith! While reading a chapter from Beyond Opinion, a collection of essays compiled by Ravi Zacharias, I read this sentence that struck me in the stomach: "My prayer for weekly youth group gatherings is that they will go from being an entertainment show full of feel-good games to an intense forum that invites tough questions and provides satisfying answers." Wow. How is it that I have (personally) started to deviate from the mind and into emotion alone? How is it that relationships are taking undue precedence over the testing of our faith?
I know I'm in dangerous territory, because a corollary to the "intense forum" is that we must LIVE out these "intense" truths WITH LOVE so that God is glorified, not ourselves.
But I still ask of myself: do I go to the opposite extreme? Have I preached love to the extent that I have deviated into the realm of pleasing people and have not engaged in the hard-hitting evangelism that demands asking and answering these tough questions?
I think so.
Then God reminded me of what I had read in His word during the morning: 2 Peter 1:16-21
16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." 18We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
19And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Peter fights against the perception of "cleverly invented stories" by saying that he was an EYEWITNESS to the majesty of God! Furthermore, it is on the WORD of the prophets (aka Scripture) that provides the ultimate basis for Jesus Christ.
This sharp, pointed argument for the legitimacy of the Bible was what Peter and the first-century Christians had to engage in to both deflect criticism and engage the lost in dialogue about the one true Christ! What good are we if we affirm the love of Christ among ourselves, yet fall flat at any challenge and fidget uncomfortably when hard questions are asked?
Rather, let me strive (however hard it is) to test my mind on these questions with a heart that prays for guidance and a spirit obedient to God Almighty.
James 1:6 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
