My last post, at least for now

When I first started blogging five years ago one of my goals was to share with people what my life looks like as a follower of Jesus. To a certain extent I'm a person who's open and wears my heart on my sleeve. But more and more I'm finding it difficult to share my life online; partly because I'm drawing a blank on what to write about and partly because I really don't want to share what's going on in my life. I've eluded in previous posts that I'm going through a sort of crisis of faith, and as I've thought about how I've been processing this both online and in the real world I felt that it was time to put my blogging on the shelf, at least for now. Until I feel like I've come to some sort of resolution I think there's no point in writing about my faith when I find it suspect in the first place.

Now this doesn't mean that I'm on the road to becoming an agnostic or even an atheist. I've taken an honest look at these worldviews and have found them both to be inadequate. I could take the middle road, like an agnostic would, but the problem there is that the doubter is certain about his or her uncertainty. And the atheist bases his or her belief on so-called evidence in spite of the fact that there is so much in the universe yet to be discovered, and ultimately will be left undiscovered or incomprehensible. We all make leaps of faith; we have to, because if we waited for all the information to come in we could never live in any sort of fashion. I've seen too much in my Christian walk to just out-right dismiss God; there are too many coincidences, too many patterns and yes, I've even witnessed a miracle or two in my time. There has to be something to this Jesus thing.

And yet I also struggle with so many questions, live with so many disappointments & regrets and am waiting for so many prayers to be answered. How accurate is biblical history? Why did God command His people to follow such strange practices and commit such distasteful acts? On the other hand, if the resurrection of Christ didn't happen, as the skeptics suggest, what other explanation is there for the rise of Christianity? Is God really leading my life when I feel like I've reached a dead end? Does God care about the people in my life - my family, my friends, my co-workers and my neighbors? What's the point in prayer when, more often than not, I don't see it making a difference in my world? Sometimes I'm amazed at how God has come through when I've prayed, and yet feel frustrated when so often heaven is, for me at least, silent. Is it enough for me to know that prayer doesn't change things but that it does change me, and so I should pray that others would pray? Can I be the change I want to see in the world, and is it enough of a change to make a real difference?

These questions have brought me to a place where I feel I can't do sermons anymore at Calvary; it's just too hard to preach about things that I honestly don't know if I believe, or even if I ever did. Yet strangely enough I feel like I'm in a place where my life is being refined. I look at the world and see that it is being shaken to its core. Our treasures are slipping away (the world financial meltdown) and our hope is fading (in our governments, public institutions, in technology's promise to make the world a better place). What then is left for the world but Jesus? And as I wrestle with my own crisis I'm seeing that all I'm left with is Jesus. All I know is that in spite of my baggage I find peace when I commune with Jesus in prayer, worship and reading scripture. I'm just having trouble seeing Him work into all the other stuff I'm dealing with. So for now I'm just hanging onto Jesus and enjoying the blessings I do have in my life, like my wife and daughter, and hopefully things will come out in the wash in the end.

So, having said all that and since I won't be writing again for a while, I want to wish my readers well. Thank you for taking the time to read my stuff, whoever and wherever you are. I know it's early, but I also want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2012. And maybe sometime in the new year I'll let you know how things turn out for me.

Hendrick