(Saturday night recall cont'd)

Tonight's BASIC meeting went aight. It's amazing how many kids are coming out every week to the church... about 30-40+ easily. Maybe it's just my mood, but I guess I'm still trying to figure out why many of the kids come, especially since they don't have family that regularly attend CBC. You would think it's the CBC kiddies, the ones who have grown up in the church, who'd make up the majority of the membership. Most of the "non-churched" kids have friends though who have grown at CBC... maybe that's it? Or perhaps, I'm just underestimating high schoolers these days... maybe they're more spiritually curious than I ever was at that age. Or even more likely... maybe I underestimate God's hand in bringing these kids. We got breakdancers, ballers, and every other kind of urban-type kid... all of them here for God?

That'd be a miracle to me... and maybe it's miracles that I'm not much of a believer in these days.

I struggle with this sense that always, God is distant from me. I wrote about it back in June and it's still hasn't changed that much over these 8 months or so of post-college life.

This seems to happen a lot in my life, but of course, I know it's in no small way related to the fact that I've now lived the majority of my life without my father. I read an interesting article once that found in several psychological studies, people's views/perspectives of God, no matter how accurate or inaccurate, corresponded heavily with their views/perspectives of their parents - meaning for example, people who viewed God as harsh cosmic disciplinarian tended to have mothers/fathers who raised them very strictly. So for me, I suppose the relationship is absent father = absent God?

Being aware of all this still doesn't help me to fight the feeling. I wonder too if I could even ever freely tell many of the people I serve with in various ministries, or even my BASIC kids, that I feel pretty spiritually discouraged. To quote an old child's song, I am lacking the "joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart". Sure, there have been brief respites of relief... serving during CoHi was one, my little excursion to LA was another - but the pervasiveness of this feeling is puzzling at times, even if I know in my head that it's rooted partially fallacy - God is not absent, God is omnipresent and omniscient... He's everywhere and knows everything.

I guess my eyes and heart refuse to agree with my head. Self-doubt is a sinister creature, bleh. If only circumstances would justify what I would like to believe and vindicate what I've been holding out for. Here I am waiting... waiting...

Damn, it's going to be a long day tomorrow... I can't believe I'm not asleep yet.

Random note:

Much to my amateur philosopher amusement, a current topic of discussion on the IIStix boards is "Fate vs. Free Will". Should be fun.
posted by G at 3:23 AM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33