Post by Josh on Apr 16, 2009 16:39:27 GMT -8
Some more from my old journals. Bear with me here. These ones have a "testimonial feel". April has been a big month for me over the years- I think it's the changing of the seasons. It's also interesting to note what kind of questions I was asking about Christianity all those years ago
April 29, 1991
Spent the day listening to my dad’s old records- Don McClean, Simon and Garfunkel and mainly John Denver. His songs evoke strange feelings in me. Sort of passion mixed with despair. I think they are awesome songs, but how can they give me any hope or even cheer me when I know that the person who wrote them is most likely going to hell? The depression I am feeling causes me to resent life to a degree. Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a dark cage and there is no hope in living. Why look forward to anything when you know it will all be over some day and there are only worse struggles ahead? Sometimes I just want to give up.
April 1992
I was a wreck. It got worse as last fall progressed into winter. The greatest struggle I’d ever known: doubt and depression. I grow angry when “sad” people say they are depressed because there is a huge difference. It slowly crept over me like a giant, smothering black veil. I fell out of orbit. Little voices started saying: Life has no meaning. Are you sure there is a God? Look at all the people doomed to hell- and you’re just watching silently! You have no real friends, they are all hypocrites. You are not worth anything. Look at the “wicked”- they are happy, they are content! Explain that! There is no God.
It was a battle between fear and truth. Almost like a split personality. My faith was a ‘house of cards’ and it fell to the ground.
Have you ever felt demons in your room? Have you ever been so alone you almost felt insane? At one point I felt like life wasn’t worth it, but I somehow knew better than to play games with God.
Everything was fine on the outside. Like a ‘white- bleached sepulchre’. I wasn’t homeless. I wasn’t abused. I wasn’t abandoned. But inside I was ‘feeding on deadmen’s bones’. I was locked up in ‘Doubting Castle’ by the ‘Giant Despair’.
I could not get in to God. There was a huge barrier. It seemed no one could remove it. I sure couldn’t. Friends’ advice couldn’t. It was Jesus that I was missing. My heart had become hard and needed to be broken.
It was during this last month that I feel I really begun to know Jesus intimately. While listening to “Beautiful to Me” by Don Francisco, I was struck by the reality of Jesus’ humanity and love. A real person in real time. A person who still cares like that for me. It was as if a roaring river burst the dam of my long pent-up heart at that moment. I was baptized by fire.
April 17, 1992
I can no longer explain in words the way Jesus moves in the hearts of men.
April 19, 1992
Jesus is close to my heart and a light has opened. I want to cry, hold someone, and shout for joy. Jesus Christ, thank You for true life.
April 30, 1993
A friend told me he had received some prophecy about his ‘fate’ from the Lord. I wrestled with that issue for a whole week, testing Scripture and praying. I get the feeling he thinks anyone without these spiritual revelations is inferior in the Lord.
Speaking of prophecies, there is a man in Portland who says God revealed to him that there will be a great earthquake on May 3. Everyone is talking and debating about it. I find myself angry with people who just blindly accept it without questions and with those who just laugh it off. Scripture says, “Treat no prophecy with contempt, but test everything!” All these extremists!
I had another talk with grandpa about the Lord this month. It was probably the most intense one ever and for the first time I didn’t feel overpowered but instead saw the gaping holes in his arguments. I must say that reading Mere Christianity has benefited me immensely. I pray for his soul. He seems so near, yet so far.
Life goes on. We never know when it will end, but we’ve got to use it wisely.
April 3, 1994
I have told God that I will not lie for Him. I have asked Him to prove Himself against lies as I grow.
April 9, 1994
His Plan nearly always seems dreadful from afar but always looks beautiful when it passes.
April 19, 1994
We are always at the edge of mistakes that could affect a lifetime.
April 1996
All of us begin a spiritual journey at an earlier age than we know, just as the seeds, which we become, are sown long before we are aware.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have a notion of God. I do remember a time when I became aware of sin, however. That is a decisive point. Immediately you must do something with it. You can hide it, rationalize it, give yourself to it, try to pay for it, or hand it over.
My early Christian years were spent dealing with the Law. God’s commandments were everything- they seemed like a complete road map to me. Black and white worked for me then. I wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise- I was concrete in my thinking. It was during that time that I was baptized.
April 1996
Language is a gift given for the purpose of creation and experiencing intimacy. Language lets us know we are not alone. But language is in a fallen state. In heaven, where we will “know fully, even as we are fully known”, our communication will be restored.
April 9, 1996
We shouldn’t love because we need. We should need because we love.
Love should not be based on a person’s actions or a person’s qualities, except one- that they are made in God’s image. You can never love someone ‘more’ or ‘less’ when you have unconditional love.
April 23, 1998
... I feel like I’m (we’re) sitting at the very edge of history wondering if it’s really going to pan out the way You said it would. Though it has been said in ages past, the world seems like it can’t bear to go on without You much longer. We are in danger of giving up, or giving in. We long for the substance of our faith, for a time to walk by sight, through cloudless days, in Your kingdom. It feels as if we’re losing steam and darkness and meaninglessness have the upper hand. I feel like Puddleglum, fighting the spell of the Emerald Witch, finding his only hope in the dream of another world that he can no longer say for certain exists.
It is true, I can’t see anywhere else to turn but You. Nothing makes sense without You, yet there are still many things that don’t with You. It is beyond me, God. I am dying to know (and also fear) all the mysteries that life and death hold. I’ve prided myself in knowledge- my firm foundation- a Justin Martyr to the skeptics. But inside I am more like Kierkegaard, just leaping out, hoping to be caught.
I will wait and see and not be presumptuous. Life is but a breath. Shall I continue as a faithful son or become a hopeless bastard out of whom nothing good can come? There are some things I do know- and good (along with evil) is clear. It is worth dying for. Jesus, You are worth it. But please give me strength and some peace of mind. It seems I’ll go crazy sometimes with the weight of the centuries falling on me in this late day. I am young, but sometimes my mind feels old.
I will press on to see You face to face.
April 29, 1991
Spent the day listening to my dad’s old records- Don McClean, Simon and Garfunkel and mainly John Denver. His songs evoke strange feelings in me. Sort of passion mixed with despair. I think they are awesome songs, but how can they give me any hope or even cheer me when I know that the person who wrote them is most likely going to hell? The depression I am feeling causes me to resent life to a degree. Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a dark cage and there is no hope in living. Why look forward to anything when you know it will all be over some day and there are only worse struggles ahead? Sometimes I just want to give up.
April 1992
I was a wreck. It got worse as last fall progressed into winter. The greatest struggle I’d ever known: doubt and depression. I grow angry when “sad” people say they are depressed because there is a huge difference. It slowly crept over me like a giant, smothering black veil. I fell out of orbit. Little voices started saying: Life has no meaning. Are you sure there is a God? Look at all the people doomed to hell- and you’re just watching silently! You have no real friends, they are all hypocrites. You are not worth anything. Look at the “wicked”- they are happy, they are content! Explain that! There is no God.
It was a battle between fear and truth. Almost like a split personality. My faith was a ‘house of cards’ and it fell to the ground.
Have you ever felt demons in your room? Have you ever been so alone you almost felt insane? At one point I felt like life wasn’t worth it, but I somehow knew better than to play games with God.
Everything was fine on the outside. Like a ‘white- bleached sepulchre’. I wasn’t homeless. I wasn’t abused. I wasn’t abandoned. But inside I was ‘feeding on deadmen’s bones’. I was locked up in ‘Doubting Castle’ by the ‘Giant Despair’.
I could not get in to God. There was a huge barrier. It seemed no one could remove it. I sure couldn’t. Friends’ advice couldn’t. It was Jesus that I was missing. My heart had become hard and needed to be broken.
It was during this last month that I feel I really begun to know Jesus intimately. While listening to “Beautiful to Me” by Don Francisco, I was struck by the reality of Jesus’ humanity and love. A real person in real time. A person who still cares like that for me. It was as if a roaring river burst the dam of my long pent-up heart at that moment. I was baptized by fire.
April 17, 1992
I can no longer explain in words the way Jesus moves in the hearts of men.
April 19, 1992
Jesus is close to my heart and a light has opened. I want to cry, hold someone, and shout for joy. Jesus Christ, thank You for true life.
April 30, 1993
A friend told me he had received some prophecy about his ‘fate’ from the Lord. I wrestled with that issue for a whole week, testing Scripture and praying. I get the feeling he thinks anyone without these spiritual revelations is inferior in the Lord.
Speaking of prophecies, there is a man in Portland who says God revealed to him that there will be a great earthquake on May 3. Everyone is talking and debating about it. I find myself angry with people who just blindly accept it without questions and with those who just laugh it off. Scripture says, “Treat no prophecy with contempt, but test everything!” All these extremists!
I had another talk with grandpa about the Lord this month. It was probably the most intense one ever and for the first time I didn’t feel overpowered but instead saw the gaping holes in his arguments. I must say that reading Mere Christianity has benefited me immensely. I pray for his soul. He seems so near, yet so far.
Life goes on. We never know when it will end, but we’ve got to use it wisely.
April 3, 1994
I have told God that I will not lie for Him. I have asked Him to prove Himself against lies as I grow.
April 9, 1994
His Plan nearly always seems dreadful from afar but always looks beautiful when it passes.
April 19, 1994
We are always at the edge of mistakes that could affect a lifetime.
April 1996
All of us begin a spiritual journey at an earlier age than we know, just as the seeds, which we become, are sown long before we are aware.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have a notion of God. I do remember a time when I became aware of sin, however. That is a decisive point. Immediately you must do something with it. You can hide it, rationalize it, give yourself to it, try to pay for it, or hand it over.
My early Christian years were spent dealing with the Law. God’s commandments were everything- they seemed like a complete road map to me. Black and white worked for me then. I wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise- I was concrete in my thinking. It was during that time that I was baptized.
April 1996
Language is a gift given for the purpose of creation and experiencing intimacy. Language lets us know we are not alone. But language is in a fallen state. In heaven, where we will “know fully, even as we are fully known”, our communication will be restored.
April 9, 1996
We shouldn’t love because we need. We should need because we love.
Love should not be based on a person’s actions or a person’s qualities, except one- that they are made in God’s image. You can never love someone ‘more’ or ‘less’ when you have unconditional love.
April 23, 1998
... I feel like I’m (we’re) sitting at the very edge of history wondering if it’s really going to pan out the way You said it would. Though it has been said in ages past, the world seems like it can’t bear to go on without You much longer. We are in danger of giving up, or giving in. We long for the substance of our faith, for a time to walk by sight, through cloudless days, in Your kingdom. It feels as if we’re losing steam and darkness and meaninglessness have the upper hand. I feel like Puddleglum, fighting the spell of the Emerald Witch, finding his only hope in the dream of another world that he can no longer say for certain exists.
It is true, I can’t see anywhere else to turn but You. Nothing makes sense without You, yet there are still many things that don’t with You. It is beyond me, God. I am dying to know (and also fear) all the mysteries that life and death hold. I’ve prided myself in knowledge- my firm foundation- a Justin Martyr to the skeptics. But inside I am more like Kierkegaard, just leaping out, hoping to be caught.
I will wait and see and not be presumptuous. Life is but a breath. Shall I continue as a faithful son or become a hopeless bastard out of whom nothing good can come? There are some things I do know- and good (along with evil) is clear. It is worth dying for. Jesus, You are worth it. But please give me strength and some peace of mind. It seems I’ll go crazy sometimes with the weight of the centuries falling on me in this late day. I am young, but sometimes my mind feels old.
I will press on to see You face to face.