While I did previously state that I intend to write more in the coming weeks, I also indirectly made mention of the fact that I'm only slowly coming back into the light after a protracted period of wandering away from the Lord's will. That's not to say that I've lost faith in God at all, but rather that I've been questioning and analyzing my faith much more honestly than I ever have before, trying to decide if this "faith" business is really worth the massive amount of effort I've been putting into it.

The simple truth is, that rosy relationship I wrote about in several previous posts ended in flaming failure. While this by itself is not altogether revolutionary in the history of man, it showed me just how quickly one's hopes can be dashed to pieces, if that person is inclined to believe that God's perfect plan means every circumstance which comes into your life is there for a special purpose, and God will never lead you down a dead-end path. What I failed to be honest with myself about, is that in spite of all the happy times we had together, there were, in fact, some glaring signs that this was not a healthy and/or beneficial relationship.

Even though our very first act as a newly-minted couple was to pray and ask God to guide us on our journey together, the fact is we both said and did many things over our short few months together which were frankly very un-Godly. While it is certainly true that nobody is perfect, and an astute believer would also be quick to point out that maybe God was guiding us, just not towards each other, the fact remains that we both stayed in an at-times miserable relationship much longer than we should have, because we believed that somehow God had fated us to meet and get together.

In the wake of the breakup, I had plenty of time to sit by myself and carefully review every aspect of the relationship, to see if perhaps there was some clear guidance from God which I had failed to hear, or some indication that my faith was not as strong as it should have been in order to be a good spiritual leader. After reviewing my prayer journal, and carefully examining all my memories of the directions I believed I was hearing from God, I can only conclude that he did, in fact, direct our paths to cross, and that he was, in fact, reassuring me constantly throughout the precarious times to stay faithful to his purpose. In a manner of speaking, it could be said that I blindly trusted and followed God, and he led me face-first into a brick wall.

This brings me to the ultimate point of my post: I think that we as Christians tend to be a bit too fatalistic when it comes to the events of our life, and we tend to ascribe far more significance to many everyday events than they may actually have. While I'm certain I'm going out on a limb here, which may invite a great deal of debate and criticism, please understand me carefully: God is sovereign, and his plans are perfect. His knowledge is limitless, and therefore he knows all the events of our lives before even one day of that life has been lived. That being said, he did also give you a rational, thinking mind, and the ability to exercise your own judgment.

Too many Christians go through life casting fearful glances at the sky as they make every move, praying that God will direct them in even the simplest of tasks, like picking which clothes to wear in the morning. While I'm certain that God has a good, pleasing, and perfect will which he wants us to be able to discern (Rom. 12:2), the fact is that, according to Philippians 2:13, our will is in some sense merely an extension of God's will. In my mind, that means that if you're capable of deciding an issue for yourself, you should do so. Sometimes I think we're so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good, meaning we simply forget to exercise our own common sense, which God gave us.

We humans are very fragile, fallible creatures. I would never presume to say that our will and our knowledge in any way trumps God's. Nevertheless, we are also not robots. If God wanted little minions who only acted when bidden to do so, he would have been content to simply create more angels and leave humanity's blueprint lying on the drawing board.

If you're struggling with the concept of finding your soulmate, relax. The fact is, any person you choose to settle down with will in a sense be perfect for you, because you have selected them based on your own deductive reasoning and therefore can live confidently with your decision. If, on the other hand, you're nervously looking around for God to drop "the one" in your lap, you'll likely pass up several promising opportunities out of some misguided fear that you're missing out on God's best for you. Or worse, you may hang on too tightly to someone who is NOT God's best for you, simply because you think the stars aligned in order to bring the two of you together.

I've been silent for a while. I'm sure some of you have noticed. This was a calculated move on my part, believe it or not. Some things have happened which I won't fully expound on right now, but suffice it to say I experienced a pretty powerful disappointment sometime around the writing of my last piece, and since then I decided to stay away from the keyboard in order to take time and make sense of it all before rushing to spew my opinion. I'm very glad I didn't write anything during that time, it wouldn't have been particularly pretty. In any case, I now believe that I'm finally beginning to come back into the sunlight. It hasn't been easy, but in retrospect it has been a very productive time of introspection and honest self-assessment.

Today I stumbled across one of my earliest writings, which Brian was kind enough to post on his blog. It was those early writings which planted the seed for me to start this site, and I'm very grateful to him, and to God for giving me the inspiration and the vocabulary to convey it. Having re-read what I wrote, it's bizarre to think that those are my own words from several months ago, as they seem to have been prophetically written for just this situation by someone else. Winston Churchill once said, "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Having experienced more than my fair share of disappointments in the last several months since I took up residence here in DC, I can authoritatively say that that statement is very nearly gospel.

When Jesus hung dead on the cross, it must have looked to all the world as though his message and his miraculous life had ended in failure. As his disciples sat sullenly in the upper room in the following days, I can't imagine there was much optimism in the room. Sometimes winning looks astonishingly similar to crushing defeat. Nevertheless, the human powers of perception are not the final authority on how a situation has actually turned out. Whether we see it or not, God's hand is at work at all times, in all situations, working for our good.

I intend to spend the next few weeks developing a few articles on this idea, and I'd like to explore in depth the story of Job, which I'm sure most of you know is quite an excellent case study in seemingly-pointless suffering which later worked out for Job's good and God's glory.

In the meantime, be encouraged that, as Benjamin Franklin succinctly said, "God governs in the affairs of men." As long as you're still breathing (or even if you've stopped, in the case of Lazarus), God's plan for your life is still at work. Sometimes things have to die in order to be reborn anew, and like a mythical Phoenix we must shake off the ashes of our former selves and take wing with the new form which God has reforged us into.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
-2 Cor. 4:16-18