Show me the money -- Coolhombres

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

Subject: Show me the money

Author:
Frizzell
[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
Date Posted: 09:13:53 03/14/02 Thu

Post college has been a difficult time for me. It has been peppered with pockets of depression, doubt, and anxiety. There are some wonderful things (my wife, my daughter) but by and large these present days are a far cry from the carefree and romatic days of Taylor University. I remember having my faith challenged and nourished by astute professors, chapels, and charitable friends (my recent trip to Steamboat reminded me of this one). After every date with my now wife, Yeager and Konopka would hold a post mortem with me and we would disect and interpret her dialogue and would come to the conclusion that "yes" she did seem to be interested. Life was good. God was evident. I have been vigilantly searching for this since graduation. There have been times of lucidity when I am spurned to love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable, but by and large I do not "feel" what I felt at our alma mader(sp?). Granted our faith is not a faith that is based on the emotive, but give me something. I guess I want to see the Red Sea parted, I want to see Elijah call down fire to consum the alter and stun the prophets of Baal, I want something to remind me of the story (see Konopka's chapel message).

I came across the following words from C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and they were a help and a hope to me:

"You must have often wondered why the enemy (God) does not make more use of his power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree he chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the irresistible and the indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of his scheme forbids him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as his felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For his ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve....Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish...He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand....Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

Uncle Screwtape

I seem to be living my life right now out of sheer determination instead of being compelled. I do remain faithful but find myself asking, with Jack Nicholson, "What if this is as good as it Gets?" As I read Lewis' words and most of the Bible I am more convinced that our calling is one of perseverence and dedication. Sweat, blood, and tears until the day that we no longer see through a glass darkly.

It was said of the great James Brown that he was "the hardest working man in show business." Let it be said of cool guys that we are the hardest working men in The Kingdom of God.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Re: Uncle Screwtape

Author:
Yeager
[ Edit | View ]
Date Posted: 14:22:28 03/14/02 Thu

Bill:

Very interesting. Incendently, that is my favorite quote in the Screwtape Letters. Ultimately, I do believe it is the only way to defeat the devil.

As far as "where have all the good times gone?", I have been reading in the O.T. and here is what I have considered: I read how the Israelites one month after crossing the red sea wished to go back to Egypt claiming they had onions, meat, fruits, ect... there. At this point in the reading you might consider the Israelites to have lost their mind. After all, who would want to go back into slavery let alone forget that they crossed through two solid walls of water? If you go on further you see enhanced complaints by them regarding getting mannah and water and again wishing to go back to Egypt.

My whole point is that perhaps the best times are today, assuming we are obeying God. Perhaps all of our view are "the grass is greener". I know when I was in college, all I could think about was wanting not to be poor. Today, I think about how great it would be not to be stressed or perhaps putting a bucket of water leaned up against my freshman neighbors door.

I think the issue for me is accepting mannah today as God's provision. When God provided mannah for the Israelites it was received with thanksgiving. Later, however, it was received with scorn.

The other issue is to consider what you are getting in return with your hardships. Would you be blessed or cursed if God give you a stress-free, rich, and perfect life? Doesn't he say that trials produce perseverence, perseverence character, and character hope? How then could we obtain character and perseverence? Could we obtain it through a book? - I think not. Perhaps then God is doing us a favor by giving us hardships. Perhaps he loves us enough to want to make us effective in our lives and worthy of service to him. I doubt a diamond would look as beautiful if it was dug out from rock and sawdered to your spouses ring without any refining. I also doubt that the life of the apostles was trial-free because God wanted to make their lives difficult.

Only through trials and tribulations will you be the man that God wants you to be. There is no other way. You may not like it, you may go kicking and screaming; but God does have a purpose.

Yeager

[ Post a Reply to This Message ]