Pain

I've been in a rough spot these past few months. I haven't had a lot of things go my way and it's made me depressed. Steadily my chin has been lifted these past few weeks. Today, I can easily say, has been the best day I've had since January, maybe even before then. Why? Well a combination of a lot of things but I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. One thing though that was a serious, spiritual slap in the face (some might say spiritual butt tap) was something incredibly bizarre. I was on netflix looking for something to watch. For some reason there was a recommendation for a Veggie Tales video and it was one that I could instantly watch. I did. It was Josh and the Big Wall. Well basically the story was about the Israelites and their journey to the Promised Land and Jericho and yadda yadda yadda... well the moral of the story was to obey God. Wow! I look back at the last few months and I remember that voice in the back of my head. Joel slow down. Joel don't do that. Joel you need to get out more (seriously)... Oops. I was supposed to listen to that. It seems logical NOW!!! (btw it's kinda late and I even took some tylenol pm to help me fall asleep awhile ago and it's apparently not strong enough to stop this and in case you're still wondering, yes, I really did watch a full Veggie Tales video)

Now on to the reason I titled this. Ok I lied. Not quite there. I was thinking about why I chose to come to Central and I remember that I felt God calling me to be a witness on the campus here. Now let's see. Two quarters in and...nope. Can't say that I've been doing that. This is how pathetic I am. I went through my facebook friends today to see how many non-Christians I was friends with. Out of 227 people I could only find maybe 50 that weren't Christians or that I wasn't sure of. Ouch. That's like 4.5 Christian friends to every 1 non. Well an interesting thing happened. I went to dinner by myself like I often do but I saw this guy who I've gotten to know lately and he was sitting with a guy I have a class with so I sat with them. Pretty soon this girl who I just met and this other guy who I've never met (who I still haven't met, didn't get his name) sat down with us. Well there I was sitting at a table with 4 other people and I'm pretty sure I was the only Christian. Thanks God. I felt extremely out of place. I don't think about getting drunk or sabotaging my promiscuous roommate's condoms or my drug addicted ex.

I was thinking, which was and still is keeping me from sleeping, about my new friends and how I can relate to them. We all, the atheist and the Mormon, the sinner and the saint, experience pain. I think I can safely say that I've had way more than my fair share of it. The world is full of hurting people. What sets me apart from my new friends is how I choose to deal with pain. When the world runs from pain they run towards their god. Alcohol, drugs, sex, lust, greed,...inevitably more pain, but not God.

In all my struggles I have been lifted up again by the NEW hope I find in Christ. My new hope for today is that I can personally invest in these people's lives to show them that there is a better way that does not end with more pain. In Romans, Paul tells them to rejoice in suffering. Why? "because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly."(Rom. 5:3-6) I'm gonna close with another quote that inspired this. I was being a nerd listening to a sermon podcast and I had to listen to this several times so I could write it down. It's a little paraphrased.

"Not everyone gets joy. Everyone gets pain. How can we look around at pain and say 'This is wrong' or 'It shouldn't be like this'? Why do we hate death and pain when they are the only common denominators? There's a voice that cries out 'It shouldn't be this way!' It's because we can conceive a place where it isn't like this." -Ben Stuart