Post 8: Less Shawn, More God

The past few days have been pretty intense, spiritually. New things are popping up (I just love all of this new stuff!) and I would like to share them.

For starters, I've come to find just how much of a sinner I still am. There are many problems that I have. I'm a complainer, selfish, glutton, and pervert to name a few. I expect myself to be able to act in a way that promotes God. I have the desire to be an excellent witness. And while my standards for myself aren't perfection (because I can never achieve that) or so I believe, whatever they are I still fall short of them.

I don't act godly because I'm trying to win God's favor. I have been in His favor for 2.5 years, starting the moment I agreed to make Jesus Christ (in Hebrew "Yeshua Messiah", which in English means "Jesus the Anointed One") the leader of my life and acknowledged what he did on the cross. I do these things out of a love and desire to be obedient to God's commands, and also because it is to my benefit.

Yet the problem I have had stems from the fact that I constantly rate how I am doing based upon that standard I have set for myself... and I always fail. The answer came on unintentionally. A friend of mine, whose blog can be found here, calls himself a Zen Christian. At the time, I didn't want to ask him about it directly as I didn't know how personal an explanation would have to be. I came across another blog, and this person had a creative solution: just BE Christian, and don't beat yourself up when you fail. Let the love of Jesus flow out through you.

I like this way of doing things. Then I wondered, "How can I bring my personality to match Jesus'?" See, at work, home and (eventually) school, I'm likely the closest thing that the lost ones around me will see to Jesus. If you remember a post from a while back, I mention my Myers-Briggs personality type: ISTJ. I'm organized, practical and factual. The disciple Thomas (aka the doubter) was ISTJ. Jesus on the other hand was not an ISTJ. It's hard to tell exactly what his type is, but based on observations from the Gospels it seems he is an -NF-, possibly INFP. (I guessed ENFJ.) My interests are probably not what Jesus would have liked. For instance, I play an interstellar combat game, Starfleet Commander, something Jesus wouldn't play. I want to go to college for computer science and am a sci-fi writer - two things unlike Jesus.

My conclusion was that my personality should not be a carbon copy of Christ's. God put in me these differences - a love for sci-fi, technological know-how, a desire to write - for the purpose of spreading the Gospel in whatever unique areas I may find myself in. The reconciliation of personalities comes in how I behave in these areas. The traits of Jesus - holiness, kindness, wisdom, patience, purity - these are the things that are to flow out of me.

Something else I wanted to happen was a greater amount of experiencing God. Faith is nice and I'm sure I have a good amount of it, but I don't want to coast on that all my life. I desire to see God act more in my life, do things that unmistakably point to him. I wrote down some ways:

• Miraculous events - always nice.
• Meditating on the Bible - understanding who God is by how he is recorded in the Bible.
• Worship - this can lead to more obvious, tangible experiences.
• "Hearing" God through thoughts - I have had situations where a thought has entered my mind that has such authority behind it that it can only have come from God.
• Conscience - that little voice in the back of your head is God prompting you.
• Feeling God's presence - not sure how this is done.
• Letting characteristics of God flow through you.
• Observing how God is working in the world and your life - coincidence? Maybe not.

In related, but different news, I am going to be heading up a Bible discussion group at the Christian youth center I attend, the Haven House. It'll be on alternating Thursdays, and it'll have prayer, inspirational real life stories and discussions on Bible topics. This works really well for me because I've always had a bit of a teacher streak in me, in the spiritual sense of the word. I'm good at analyzing things to find out what they are and then relaying that information to others. Now is my chance.

Sorry, I wrote this entry on two separate days. I may not have said everything I originally intended to. If so, then I'll just edit this post and add the info.

Post 6: Wisdom from a Cemetery, and Other Places

THEME: Death is not the end, but what you do now will affect you later.

A few days ago my parents took me, a family friend and her son 14 miles south of here to a cemetery in Coffeyville. They were looking at the graves of those who died as a result of a bank robbery decades, maybe a century ago when Kansas was still considered the wild wild west. And while they were enjoying the famous landmarks (which I didn't personally find to be all that exciting, but interesting nonetheless), my thinking was elsewhere.

As I often do when considering things, I look at the world from an atheist/agnostic viewpoint. I considered death and its finality. I imagined the tombstone of a friend of mine and what it might look like. Then I pictured my mother's, and my father's and finally my own.

"That's it?" I asked myself. We work our butts off for years on end and then we die and none of it matters. What good does it do that I enjoyed my pizza or that I was a good computer programmer? All I was doing is trying to accumulate enough money so I could live an easy life. But then I would die and that would be the end of it. In one instant, as my body shut down, everything I had done becomes irrelevant. Nothing matters. Nothing.

"Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"

For some reason I always wind up at that verse. Ever since I moved to Kansas, that statement has found a strong truthfulness in my life. I labored for thirteen years in school - for what? The moment high school graduation ended, the number of A's I got on those tests became pointless. I could have had a total average that was 10-15 points lower than what I got and most colleges still would have accepted me. And in my daily battle with slight gluttony, I frequently think, "Why bother eating extra? I'm just going to get hungry again."

But I know that death isn't the end for me. There is a meaning for what I do. What I do now in this life won't just affect me in later years but also into eternity. I'm not working 17+ hours a week for no reason. I don't attend church every Sunday just to keep appearances up. There is a reason I've committed myself to higher education and why I want so badly to effectively use every second I have left on this earth and pour so much energy into my passions and the people I love.

When I was younger, death scared me. Now I'm not afraid. (Not to sound suicidal but I gladly await death, when I can get into Heaven and be happy forever.) Still, I'm often aware of my own mortality and the fact that yes I will one day die. I want to live for God and enjoy myself in the time that remains for me. Death is my motivator. Knowing that eventually I won't be able to do anything here in this life makes me work all the more harder.

Another thing this makes me realize is that what I do now will affect me in my later years, just as Solomon discovered. He led a wordly, materialistic life and in his final ones he found himself to be unsatisfied with life. He felt as though that time was wasted. As as youngster, I didn't like to brush my teeth. I put the blame on the way toothpaste tasted. Now I brush daily, but those years of not caring for them have become clear. My teeth are stained and somewhat sensitive. I don't smile with teeth showing for that reason. I know that what I do with money now is going to decide how I handle it when I'm older. Every second of the now has influence on the later.

So why, oh why, don't I let this fact really get into me and change how I act? There are times when it does, when I choose to look past the immediate and focus on the long-run. How am I going to come out given my current habits? I'm hooked on a game called Starfleet Commander and I plan on playing it for a long time, although in a few years it will probably lose the popularity it has and wither out of existence. So why continue to play it now?

Because it's fun! OK look, what are the most important things in my life right now? My faith, my work, and getting into college. But I have a whole lot of free time during the week and focusing exclusively on those three things would be downright exhausting. I play this game because it entertains me, it allows me to think and deal with real people. Yes eventually the game will lose steam and die out. But until then, I'm going to try and make it to the #1 position on its leaderboard!