My identity and direction in life

How often have you asked yourself the question, " Who am I?" and "Where am I going in life?"? I have searched these areas for so long from the time of being a teenager, through college, and up til now. You can just imagine and predict how any average kid would go about in his or her life trying to answer these deepest questions about human existence and purpose in life. I tried to really fit into this world by trying to enter into relationships with women. Of course most of the time I wasn't successful because I was so insecure with myself and apart from a sincere heart had nothing else to offer them. Also I had a sense of low esteem of who I was primarily because of the fact that most girls I had ever liked usually liked some other guy who had better looks than I did. Nothing my mother or sisters could ever comfort or remind me of the valuable person I was and could offer to a woman. I thought maybe working out or getting a tan would work better or trying to improve my style of clothing. Nothing seemed to work. I started wondering if marriage was just an illusion or a dream that I could only imagine in my mind and not experience in the real world. I started wondering if I had any problems with myself that could have prevented me from experiencing meaningful relationships. I thought maybe the idea of me being a missionary to Ukraine would inspire a girl to give up her upbringing and status in the states to join me and make me feel that I was onto something in life. I even wanted my parents to be pleased with my actions. Not only that, I wanted to know that I could be in a place where I would experience stability and not have to succumb to change on a regular basis which became a prominent component in my later years.

I remember a young lady I had liked for some time when I was in Ukraine. Her name was Natasha. She came into the youth group at our church after finishing a course for new believers and some time after that we became friends and started hanging out together. One afternoon after church she came to me and asked me to come over to her house for her birthday celebration. I automatically assumed that she had other people from the church that were going to be there and inevitably I was wrong. There were no other people from there apart from me, her family and neighbors. I began to think that maybe I could get to know her better over time. We started hanging out more and more and sure enough I would go to her house on occasion and just chill with her there. But then I realized that I liked her and wanted to tell her but was too scared. I had this idea that if I liked a girl and wanted to be with her then I had ceased to be rational or had shifted my focus of life to the wrong place. I began to think of mom and dad and what they would say. They never condemned me being with Natasha and sure enough it was ultimately my decision. I even struggled with communicating my thoughts in a clear and concise way in Russian. After a certain period of time, our friendship started to drift away. We began to spend less and less time together and I found that we had ceased to be friends and had become mere acquaintances.

How did I feel about this? I felt terrible and still feel terrible to this day at times because I think that I was given an opportunity to be in a relationship with someone (regardless of whether it was the right time or not) and I messed it up. Inevitably, she had interest in me and lost it because of my failure to act. And sure enough, I don't date women to this very day and haven't for a very long time. I don't equate my singleness now to my mistakes in the past necessarily. I intentionally chose to embrace singleness as of right now because of some areas in my life that I want to work on through the work of Christ and can better focus on when I am not in a relationship. Do I still have desires on occasion? Absolutely. But I know that God knows my desires and will grant them to be fulfilled in the time that He knows is best.

How do I find my purpose or direction in life? I honestly have to say that it became more clear when I had doubts as a Christian about the objectivity of my beliefs. Over time, I began to see that life through the lenses of Christianity made more sense than life through the lenses of another world-view because of the truth that Christianity provided that answered the most important questions I had as a person and still encounter to this day. What gives me passion in life? All sorts of things give me passion in life. Reading philosophy, apologetics, studying different aspects of the New Testament and reflecting over principles in the Scriptures and praying over them and applying them to other people in my daily life. But also more than anything I desire two things: A more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ and a life mate to share personal intimacy with. Those two things I personally desire and long with all of my heart, soul, and mind. God has given me those desires or otherwise I wouldn't have them. I know He will provide those things when the time comes. I also realize that God so often is working through the small and intricate areas of my life to eventually show His divine plan for me. Sometimes He will blow me out of the water but most of the time it is through searching and praying.

So what is my identity in life? I am someone special created in the image of God (God is a Person with a soul and a mind) who inherited the traits I have that make up my intrinsic value from the very nature and character of God himself. I have a purpose to live because I am not the accidental byproduct of nature but have volition and the ability to love and worship God. I am loved incomprehensibly regardless of my actions and have been given grace and forgiveness resulting in my salvation from my sins.

So what is my direction in life? To bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ through my lifestyle and personal witness (living and verbal) to other people who are unbelievers and believers. I am also to express thanksgiving and gratitude to God for giving me the things I love and cherish and am to make the most of the gifts and abilities He has endowed me with for this life.

Hope this was insightful for you.

Resurrection of Jesus

Is the Resurrection of Jesus merely a matter about theology or is it part of history with implications dealing with theology? I was watching a debate one time between Michael Licona (New Testament historian) and Bart Ehrman (New Testament textual critic) about whether historians could prove that Jesus was raised from the dead. One interesting and powerful objection to Licona's case was that the conclusion that God raised Jesus from the dead was something that could only be believed in the realm of theology and not history. In his opinion, God was outside the access of a historian to conclude anything about Jesus being raised from the dead because apparently He is outside of time and cannot be witnessed performing an act in history. Of course this seemed to not sit well with me at first because this was a man (Ehrman) who himself claimed to have been an Evangelical Christian familiar with apologetics and history and who could muster up some powerful objections to this. I, on the other hand, would not let this go without some critical thought. So I paced my room and kitchen area and pondered on why was this so important to understand in light of the debate I had just watched. I immediately remembered a comment made by Licona that physicists and cosmologists who study the universe make theoretical statements or assign theoretical explanations to help understand certain phenomena that isn't theoretical in their own nature. Take for instance the Big Bang. When Albert Einstein made his calculations and when other scientists made discoveries confirming its truth, many if not all of them became deeply troubled by the implications of the Big Bang. Why was this the case? Because, of the fact that the universe had a beginning, there began to emerge meta-physical or theological implications from the evidence that had a role in explaining the nature of the event in the history of the universe. Since the universe began to exist at some point in the finite past, then it wasn't eternal because there cannot be an infinite series of events in reality. It began to exist and therefore it had a cause for its own existence. The cause of the universe, whatever it was, had to have been timeless (time was created at the Big Bang), immaterial (there was no matter prior to the Big Bang), and personal (the cause was eternal and the effect was finite and this requires volition) with an unembodied mind involved. Now clearly, this is a very real description of God himself as described in the Bible and how he is imagined. This conclusion does not automatically say that God was the cause of it. What it does show that the conclusion has implications that run deeply into religious or theological significance. It supports theological or religious conclusions but it is based independent of them.

Back to the resurrection of Jesus, the most powerful evidence for Jesus rising from the dead comes from the 1st letter to the believers in Corinth from the Apostle Paul who tells them he gave them a tradition or the gospel and also had received it himself prior to his visit there in Corinth. Now, on historical grounds, we can establish with hardly any doubt that Jesus was indeed crucified, that he was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimithea, and that the tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers on the first day of the week (Sunday). Why? Because his death is recorded in all the four Gospels and is mentioned in secular sources as well who had no motive or reason to make up such an event. Since he was killed and was buried, what happened to his body? The Jews made up the notion that the disciples had stolen it. This accusation affirms that the tomb was truly empty. Now what about Jesus? Did the disciples automatically assume he was risen from the dead just because they found the tomb empty? Definitely not! The resurrection of a person within history (See Dr. William Lane Craig http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html) was extremely un-Jewish in its nature.

So if Jesus was killed, buried in a tomb, and then appeared alive physically to several people (believers, enemies, and skeptics), then we have good grounds to say that historically Jesus was truly raised from the dead. But what was the nature of this event? This goes deeper than the mere historical regime of the investigation and can in fact corroborate the event even though it itself is not replicated in the event itself. For example, John wants to send Jody some flowers. He goes to the store and buys them and then sends them to her house in Ohio. He has a receipt proving he bought the flowers and one for shipping them. Now does the fact that we have documented evidence of John's actions establish what kind of person he is? Not necessarily. However, from actions entailed in this occasion, we can hypothesize and get inside the mind of John and conclude that he probably loved Jody or at least was attracted to her and wished to express his feelings towards her. Now none of the conclusions I just made are explicit in the evidence but they are implied. I don't have to interview John to reach this conclusion. And the same with the Resurrection and the Big Bang. Both in of themselves have nothing to do with theology and are merely in the realms of history, but both have implications that go beyond the visible data themselves. So when we say that God raised Jesus from the dead, we mean that God is an entity who Himself isn't needed as part of the investigation but is helpful in establishing the nature of the event and can explain it in deeper detail. It works the same way with the Big Bang. The Big Bang marked the beginning of the universe, the universe has a cause for its own existence, the cause was God (God being an entity to explain the causal nature of the event).

So it's reasonable to conclude that the Resurrection of Jesus - while a historical event - is a demonstration of a God who can act in human history whenever He chooses and can work the same today as He did many times before.

The working of Jesus in his time and now

There are so many references in the New Testament on how Jesus went about teaching and performing miracles and especially how he went about doing them. But there is an important element that people tend to overlook when they read the parables spoken through Jesus. He tends to often make them seem difficult and hard to understand and yet challenges people to grasp the meaning of his words. In the Gospel of Mark chapter 4 in verses 22-25 Jesus gives an interesting conclusion to a parable he gave about a lamp under a basket. He says in the following: "For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has hears to hear, let him hear." And he said to them, " Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Jesus nearly made it seem as if he wasn't going to make it too difficult to understand but not too easy for one to take advantage of him with what he was preaching. If a spiritual person wishes to understand the things of God relevant first and foremost to Scripture, philosophy, history, or science, then he is called to do some mental work and through the work God acknowledges the man's efforts to know Him and will respond by revealing more of Himself gradually over time. As one friend put it: " God is all about give and take." Sometimes God will just "give" us something from the Scriptures. But most often He chooses to see if we genuinely desire to know him in that capacity. How much do we really believe? Our actions confirm our genuine beliefs. If we really believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will show us more of Himself through the Word of God day by day then we ought to be in it constantly. Otherwise, why should Christ take us seriously? That is nearly as bizarre as a friend named John telling me that he would like to get to know and become better friends yet he hardly ever calls and only talks to me whenever I see him. But this is something I myself have failed sadly too many times. I would always pray and want to hear the voice of the Almighty and be in His presence and yet when the opportunity would arise for me to pursue such a journey, I would bail out. May God forgive me for my inconsistency and for His empowerment for my life and that I would take advantage of the things He has left here for me.