Clouds

I’m laying on the ground in my backyard. The concrete is cold, but it feels nice.

There’s a lot of anxiety in me right now. I’m worried about my tests. Will I pass? Can I even pay for them? I’m not sure. But today’s talk at church was encouraging. We can trust that Jesus is for us. He cares for us and our well being. That’s hard for me to swallow. It’s hard for me to have faith.

I’m thinking about copying out of my journal and pasting into my blog right now, so maybe I should explain where I’m coming from. Where the background is in the talk and so forth.

The talk. We’re in 1 Corinthians 10. Here’s what I remember: people lose faith because they doubt God is either great, or that God is good. I’ve doubted both at one time or another. Honestly, I’m having a hard time remembering it all. I can look through my notes, but I don’t feel like it.

Anxiety. I’ve wanted to have money for a long time. I don’t. It’s even embarrassing to say. People measure your success on how much money you have. That’s how it feels. There are some that don’t. But, our culture definitely cares. It cares about money a lot. I’ve been sucked into that. I’d love a big house. I’d love a 2018 Toyota Tacoma. iPhone X. International vacation. Those all sound awesome. Even just not having to worry about things.

I can say that I don’t have faith many times. In fact, this morning I had a thought: I might be one or two steps away from atheism. And I wondered if that was a bad thing. I think I’m further away than that. But, this morning that was my thought. If that’s true, I wouldn’t want to resist. If there is nothing but nature, I wouldn’t want to resist. If there is not a god, then I wouldn’t want to believe. Using logic is good…

I’m not there, though. I’m a Christian. I believe in things that aren’t logical. I believe in the supernatural. I believe God met humans as Jesus.

He did things, and said things that weren’t logical. He told us to love others, even those outside our tribe. That doesn’t make sense. Nature says to look out for yourself, and fight outsiders. 

I’m thinking out loud. I don’t have it all together. Today’s talk was good. It strengthened my faith. I’m looking for balance. A balance between logic and faith.

In between sentences, I’m looking up at the sky. The clouds are moving around so gracefully. Whisper clouds breaking apart, then coming back together, on a background of blue sky. It’s beautiful.

Life is hard to understand. I have a drive to try to live right though. Treat others with respect. Show my children love, and teach them how to be good humans. I feel like that is important, and it’s consistent with my faith.

I’ll never have this figured out, and I imagine if I’m lucky to have 40 more years of life, my journals and blog will have the same sorts of struggling going on.