[ Tuesday, April 29, 2003 ]
Hi. This is a series of reflections - or maybe just one reflection - on the state of man. I'm 34 years old, this month. I became a Christian at the age of 19. Often, in the west, the gospel is preached as a "Come to God He will solve all your problems" gospel. To a degree, that is how I came to God - I was at my wit's end, facing a life of purposelessness and pain. I felt I needed an escape, something... anything... that would indeed "solve all my problems". I came to God quite by surprise (my surprise, not His). And my life turned around. My character began slowly to change (in some aspects quickly). Most important to me at the time was that the sense of purposelessness vanished. I realised that all the things in my life - studies, career - existed for His purpose. When decisions had to be made - have to be made - I seek God's purpose and desires. At the same time, Jesus began to deal with the pain of broken relationships in my life. Not that all my relationships began to work out like a Disney movie - rather, even in those that didn't work, the pain became a healing pain, an exorcism of the scars of the past. My first several years were a time of growth in my spiritual life. At the end of that time, it was time to travel overseas, taking a job in a foreign country, in faith that God would use me there.
God has used me, but neither to the extent nor in the way I expected. Perhaps my time is not over here yet?
As a Christian, I am not immune to the problems of the world. I still face office politics, and frustration. I come home tired to a sometimes loving, sometimes equally tired and frustrated wife. People say bad things behind my back about me, surely just as much as they say bad things to my face about others. My motives are questioned, my ambitions fade in the daily clatter and rattle of business. I still have to service my car, I still get the 'flu when others also do. I still feel lonely as I face a world of people who, as self-centred and self-absorbed as I am, do not have time for my problems.
Added to this is the intellectual knowledge that my suffering is far less than that of many others. I have a good education, a relatively stable job, a wife, a child, no major illness, food on the table three times a day, clean water to drink. I am not afraid of secret police knocking on my door at midnight, I know that nobody today will ask me to renounce my faith or die. Many Christians suffer far more than I. Where, for them, is the God of "come and He will solve all your problems?" Where is He for me? Slowly - so slowly I am ashamed to admit it - I must learn to accept that God does not shield His children from the difficulties of this life. We suffer as much as unbelievers do, perhaps more.
What then is the "purpose" of being a Christian?
I cannot give an answer to that question here. However, I can give an answer to a different question: "What is the purpose of this blog?" Its purpose will be to explore the question above, with my own reflections on my own limited perspective and experience of a transcendent, immanent, perfect divinity in a broken, stumbling sin-filled world.
Mike [10:45 PM]
