Post 32: Progress Report

I have a strange ability. Often when people set out to do things, to chase their dreams, they give up along the way. I'm not doing well on my New Years' Resolutions but with the things I mentioned in the previous post I'm actually doing really well! Here's a little update for you.

There's still about six months until I head off to university. I have decided that I'm going to Kansas State University. For good reason too: not only is it cheaper, I have something like over $6,000 in scholarships coming my way for my high grades and Phi Theta Kappa membership. A few days ago I spent the better part of my waking hours working on scholarships online, and hopefully I'll win one or two. In high school I applied for something like seven of them but didn't win any. Despite having insanely high grades and strong writing skills. Oh well. Still need to look into student loans. I figure I will go with the Sallie Mae company. Four of my five semesters in community college had 4.0 GPAs with an overall of 3.945.

A couple weeks after graduating I got my degree in the mail. I was so proud of it, I was telling everyone I got in contact with. It has a nice leather cover and the degree is laminated inside. Fifteen years of schooling have culminated in receiving that degree, and dangit I want to utilize it! I could contact the local employment agency to see what jobs, if any, are open around here. I'm hesitant to do that however, because I already have a job. Picking up two jobs, even if both are part time, would curtail a lot of my free time. Instead, I'm improving my Web design skills via volunteer work. I play a game called NationStates and lately I've been building the Web site for the group I am a member of. One of my weak points is graphic design but that's being improved with time.

Related to that, I'm still learning how to program in Java. I've finished reading the textbook I bought so now I'm just looking around and trying projects to improve my skills.

One of the things I was really concerned about the last time I posted was driving. I took the permit test and failed the first time. It's a series of 25 or so questions and you can get no more than 5 wrong otherwise you fail. I had 9 wrong the first time. A couple of them were kind of dumb mistakes but a couple others were questions worded very trickily. My second time, a week later, I passed having made only three mistakes. My official permit came in the mail a week or so later.

After that I had to find people to teach me to drive! I need 40 hours of daytime driving and 10 hours of nighttime driving. At first nobody was really willing to help. Then a month later I received like 3 or 4 offers. My first time driving was a Saturday after work. I discovered that driving isn't nearly as difficult as it may appear, but the mechanics are also slightly different from what I always assumed. I'm naturally a fast learner and this was no exception. At first I was nervous to get up to 20 mph but now I consider that slow! I've spent a lot of time on gravel roads and am itching to get on suburban streets and highways. Definitely looking forward to future driving. I want to put more work into turning, parking, and stopping.

In the field of faith, I have discovered Dr. William Lane Craig's Web site Reasonable Faith. It is a site devoted to Christian apologetics and rational arguments for the existence of God and Jesus. Not only have I learned a lot from it, I've also had my faith strengthened. To be honest, I do often get nervous when I approach areas where the arguments are strongly debated and put through the rigors, however in time I will muster the courage to read through those and understand both sides of the argument. My favorite and most convincing argument, to me, is the teleological argument, also known as the watchmaker theory, fine-tuning, or Intelligent Design. I hope to someday share what I've learned.

Post 26: Re-Examing My Beliefs?

Over the past three and a half years I have followed the beliefs of the Pentecostal denomination of Christianity. Pentecostals emphasize the supernatural side of the faith, rooting this in the events of Pentecost as laid out in Acts 2. However in the past year I've also begun learning the beliefs of the Southern Baptist denomination which doesn't quite stress supernatural events as much as the fact that one is saved by faith. I've also dabbled in Catholic and Messianic Jewish views. This has given me several different perspectives on what the Bible teaches.

What I'm thinking I may do some day is undergo personal study to figure out what seems most logical about things such as the Rapture, the Trinity, whether or not God is still giving out spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and prophesy like He did in the beginning, what the meaning behind speaking in tongues is and the ways it ought to be used, the end times and how Revelation plays out, and other things that I could think of. A friend of mine is Christian, very intelligent, very faithful, yet he seems to deviate from the standard accepted believes of Protestants in a couple areas. I feel I should likewise examine for myself what the Bible says. I tend to interpret the Bible in a literal sense where possible so that alone could make me differ from Pentecostal teachings. I will need to do this some time in the future. Right now, I'm too busy with college.

Post 23: Survived that One!

Yes, another blog entry about the supposed 21 May Rapture. Look at a different blog entry on here if you'd rather not read this. :D

I had read something about this prediction several months beforehand but I gave little attention to it. It wasn't until the day before the predicted Rapture was to take place that CNN and possibly other news outlets started talking about it. It was annoying that they were saying it was "the end of the world," when it wasn't. According to Mr. Camping's theory, the end of the world was to be 5 months later.

Although I figured that it wouldn't take place, a little bit of me felt a little alerted. It was a good kick in the rear that Jesus's return could happen at any time. The Rapture is a doctrine of Protestant Christianity stating that Jesus will return to the Earth and take up all true Christians with him in Heaven. This idea was developed in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Due to this rather recent inception of the doctrine, I don't totally believe it anymore. I've only done a little research about it, but the Scriptures that support it could easily be used to describe the Second Coming at the end of the seven-year Tribulation. In fact, in the book of the prophet Isaiah there is a mention of it that mixes it with the Second Coming. Roman Catholics, who have been around for much longer than Protestants, don't believe in any sort of Rapture.

Another thing: the Rapture is said to be something so major that everyone in the world will know when it's happening and it will be immediate. But Mr. Camping said it would happen at 6 PM of each timezone. If that were so, it would give people in later timezones warning that they were going to be Raptured since I'm sure news outlets would announce the major disasters taking place in Raptured nations. So much for "like a thief in the night."

I was watching a program on television a few weeks ago called "Discovering the Jewish Jesus." The host, Rabbi K. A. Schneider, is a Messianic Jew which means he maintains Jewish traditions but observes the New Covenant (i.e., saved by faith and not by observing Mosaic Law). His show often shows how the Old and New Testaments are analogous, with parts of the OT prophesying and foreshadowing what would happen in the NT. He showed an interesting correlation between Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and the End Times. Exodus 5-14 show a very stubborn Pharaoh refusing to release the Hebrews, who had become the slaves of the society. Thus in order to persuade the leader, God sent down ten plagues upon Egypt until finally the Hebrews were allowed out.

The Hebrews were still present in the nation of Egypt while the plagues were taking place. According to Rabbi Schneider, this event is representative of what the End Times will be like. As best as I can recall, he implicitly agrees with the Catholic notion of no Rapture. The Hebrews weren't removed from Egypt until after the plagues were finished. Likewise, the Christians and Messianic Jews of the last days will not be taken into Heaven until Christ's Second Coming.

I'm sure that there were people who heard about the 21 May Rapture and became believers or otherwise rededicated their lives to Christ. I imagine some of them were disappointed when it did not occur and have already abandoned that faith. Non-believers have doubtlessly mocked the event the whole time and now, thanks to this farce of a prophesy, they are now even more stubbornly hardened against God. I came across this amusing comment on the Interwebs: "Mr. Camping should be thankful that he lives under the New Testament economy. Under the OT economy and Torah law, he’d of found himself under a big pile of rocks, suffering the fate of a false prophet." (Source here.)

Despite all of this, I was enlightened to the impending return of Christ. I've long held that my life is one big bet: that Christianity is true and Jesus is coming soon. If it's false, then oh well. I won't know until I'm dead, and since I won't be conscious due to lack of an afterlife I won't regret it. If I'm right then I lucked out big time. I personally believe that the Second Coming is really soon. I'm a couple months away from being 20, and I feel I may not make it to 40 before Jesus comes again. So while I still have the time, I need to get myself into gear and try to strengthen my faith and relationship with God.

On a related note, I came across a website showing statistical analysis of prophesies listing when the Rapture and Second Coming could take place. Don Koenig admits that his predictions may be off by millenia but the numbers are fascinating and they show that things are about to get very serious very soon.

Post 11: Farsighted Faith

During my preteen years I was in a depression that required me to go to counseling to get out of. One of my habits was sitting close to the TV, maybe a yard or two away from it. As a result of this habit my eyesight was ruined. I wear glasses now so I can see and when my eyes were last checked, my vision was around 20/85. It has probably degraded further because of all the time I've spent in front of computers, however recently I've begun taking preemptive measures to stop the damage.

I'm short-sighted. A fancier term for that would be "myopia". If I take my glasses off, I can see up close things just fine, and usually take off my glasses when reading. However, without my glasses distant things start to blur. The glasses put everything in perspective for me.

Surely if you have more than ten brain cells, you should be able to see the analogy I just made here.

Something I noticed either today or yesterday that really struck me: on one of the message boards that I visit regularly, there was this one dude who really pushed the limits as to what he could and couldn't say. I have a Christian name on the forum and he sent me mean private messages and made two threads badmouthing Christianity. Simply put, he was a troll. And for the longest time he didn't get punished because he had held back just enough to not break the rules. However recently he was banned. Now he has a new account and is less questionable.

Often people will spend years waiting for God to fulfill a prayer and help them out of something, and it's very easy to get frustrated and give up. For example, I have fought on and off to gain control of my words. I'm normally quite impulsive when I speak and there have been plenty of times where the results were disasterous. Yet I haven't been able to fully capture control over what I say. Many times I've lost patience and given up.

My faith, and unfortunately I'd say the faith of most of the body of Christ, is short-sighted. Our spiritual myopia causes us to want instant results. It's human nature to want everything done right away, ASAP. Sometimes, God will do that. But many times, things are delayed for months or years. 

The banning of that troll demonstrated that even when nothing seems to be happening, justice will be carried through. Your healing will be done. That loved one you pray for will be saved. What is needed is for us, and this includes myself, to be in a sense farsighted.  Look ahead into the future. Picture the problem being solved. Believe God will have what need to be done accomplished. Start doing what needs to be done to ensure that it'll be accomplished. And between the time you start that step of faith and God makes that move that brings that desire to realization, just keep chugging. Keep doing what needs to be done. Don't focus on current situations that seem to indicate failure or nothing at all happening. The future is an uncertain thing. You never actually know what lies ahead until you experience it. Not every outcome has signs to indicate that change is coming. I didn't know that I would be told how much I was messing up my Bible study, when I was planning to speak on what a relationship with Jesus is.