The belief in a higher calling is not an easy thing. It's a burden. It's hard to try to live your life to the fullest to glorify God. Don't ever let anyone talk you into being a Christian by telling you it will solve all your problems. Christians face the problems of non-believers, except they have a few more to deal with. For the fact that living a life separate from the majority of the world is difficult, one needs to look no further than an elmementary school-aged child.

Children face so much persecution for the smallest difference. I cite this from experience - experiences of mine and of others. I took my share of it in my neighborhood, and i wish i could take back the part i had in dishing some of it out in school. If one is different from the others - in looks, intelligence, lifestyle, or otherwise - he is ostracized. The fact that they are all different in some way, deficient in something someone else has, doesn't matter to them; they persecute anyway...if this example is too simplistic for the more "enlightened" person, he can look at the ancient Romans, the crown jewel of civilization at their time.

One of the most infamous Roman emperors was Nero, a tyrant resented by a number of his subjects, but one who released his rage on a group of people who differed in theology from him - the Christians. They didn't fit into his delusion of self-deification, so they bore the brunt of his wrath. They were tortured, thrown to wild animals in the Colosseum...they were used as torches to light his evening garden parties. Christianity definitely was not the easy way out.

Throughout the ages, there has been persecution of Christians - some wide-spread, some very localized. We see it even today in the liberal trend of society. It may be subtle, and at times it may be presented as the best thing for the public, but it's still there. The true Christian is a very odd and, in many circles, unaccepted person. He is looked at strangely, laughed at, or sometimes physically beaten or murdered. As with all unusual trends in society, this all leads to one question...why? Why reject the norm and take so much effort to live right when we know eventually we'll die (barring the Rapture, but that's another story)? Why bother?

It's not for money or personal glory, in fact, that may very well be easier accomplished if one is not a Christian. It's not for power over others, for Christ called us all to be servants. It's not because we get superhuman physical strength or will never get sick, because we don't, and we will. Why?

It's for those nights that while we're crying and thinking and wondering and folding in on ourselves, a peace that we can't explain comes over us and we just sleep.

It's for those times when we feel that we can't go on, but we find we can.

It's for those nights that we sit under the stars and think not about the fiery balls of gas formed millions of years ago, but about the hand that formed them all...and slowly that hand descends to clasp ours.

It's because we don't delude ourselves; we know we can't do this on our own, and we have undeniable confidence that no matter what problem we face, our God is bigger.

...It's for the pure joy that comes when we finally overcome that struggle with His help.

It's for the knowledge that no matter how lonely we feel, we're never alone.

That's why.

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Doesn't it stink when you've shut down your computer, are about to get in the shower, and something like this hits you?

a brief and terribly undescriptive return - 10.28.04
- - 09.17.04
- - 08.16.04
- - 08.13.04
- - 07.30.04