wasted time

"What good with it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" Matthew 16:26

Last weekend my parents had some missionaries over for lunch who my mother has been friends with for many years. They talked about the trials they have been facing in Europe and North Africa and how much they needed prayer from the churches here. But what I found interesting was a comment the wife had made. She talked about how they had gone to church that morning and found it to be a weird experience. She said that it was funny how church seemed to be so much of a social event that only happened for about an hour then ended. "You know" she commented "church is suppose to be a lifestyle." Now it's not like I hadnt heard this before, but coming from someone who it really was a lifestyle for it meant a lot. Being a christian for them is about sacrificing their wants and desires daily. To suffer is really to love. I dont even know how to suffer. All I have done for the last two weeks is nothing but waste my life. Its so hard to make that jump, to truly give up everything, when you already feel like you are serving. But its still not enough. It doesnt fulfill. Its like I am still holding on but oh.. how I want to let go.

"It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from." - C.S. Lewis

I woke up this morning not in the highest spirits so i decided to take a trip to the mall and buy some Christmas presents. I walked into Hollister and as I reached over a table to grab a shirt my eyes met with a chubby junior high girl. The girl looked at me as if I were a goddess- like I was what she had for years aspired to be... a thin college girl. I graciously smiled back and walked out of the store.
How sad is our society. I wish that I could have told the little girl that her aspirations were empty. That her body would either never be beautiful enough causing people to reject her..or if she was beautiful people would only use her. I wanted to tell her that the people deemed "beautiful" in her eyes in reality are cold and cruel. That vanity would destroy her mind then her body physically then finally her soul. How sad it is that so many precious and pure girls will be sucked down such a destructive path which will promise them everything except for what they will truly gain leaving them only broken, empty, and dirty.

"He himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times..." Acts 17:20
The final day of my philosophy class everyone sat anxious in their seats ready to go. It was the day everyone had been waiting for. Topic for the day : The meaning of life. The whole semester my class had gone through every philosopical topic you could imagine while being guided by a brilliant atheist who had systematically answered every question pertaining to every topic. This secular point of view had completely torn down all "religious" answers which were merely a "crutch" to our ability to truly think. But now for the icing on the cake- could we "reason" with the ulitimate question? Could we truly create meaning? We started off with discussing that maybe the "point" was to simply be happy- to avoid everything that may cause pain and stick with doing that which is "safe." But isnt happiness momentary? That would not do we concluded. There most be another answer. Next we discussed nihilism- maybe we should not really believe in anything and accept that there is no meaning..no purpose. My professor paused. "Maybe you can just accept that life is a bitch but most people cant because most people feel that something greater transcends mankind giving us a longing for something more."
At that was it. That was the end of the class. What a joke.
One of the biggest problems people have with theism is accepting that God allows suffering and evil to exist. But what if we could turn the tables and reply that the answer is actually in the question?
What if suffering creates meaning? When someone hurts they question the purpose in it. But what if the purpose is so that person is given a broader view of the world and brings them closer to God? Suffering gives us depth.

"The fate he had been marked for he had met with vengance- he had emptied the cup to the lees; he had been the man of his time, the man, to whom nothing on earth was to have happened. That was the rare stroke- that was his visitation. It was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had waited the wait itself his portion.
The escape would have been to love her; then he would have lived. It had sprung as he didn't guess; it had sprung as she hopelessly turned from him, and the mark, by the time he left her, had fallen where it was to fall. He had justified his fear and achieved his fate; he had failed...a moan now rose to his lips as he remembered she had prayed he mightn't know. This horror of waking- this was knowledge, knowledge under the breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze. Through them, none the less, he tried to fix it and hold it; he kept it there before him so that he might feel the pain. That at least, belated and bitter, had something of the taste of life. But the bitterness suddenly sickened him, and it was as if, horribly, he saw, in the truth, in the cruelty of his image, what had been appointed and done." - Henry James