I hope my heart is not too hard

Over the last few months I have come to a realization that is hopefully leading me in a better direction. It seems that young adults my age have been struggling with the search for spiritual truth. I'm not sure exactly what the overall situation or problem has been with other people, but I can expound on my own experience(s).

I think that the different questions concerning spiritual truth, how God has devised his plan for his own glory, and the truths of the bible have been of overriding importance to me, but have left me calloused and hardened towards the Spirit of God.

Ever since I began to ask questions about God's sovereignty and ideas that would change the way I viewed our creator I placed an urgency/importance on the knowledge of scripture and the answers to some of the hardest theological questions. And, in my pursuit of these answers I seemed to find the answers in the scriptures. With the help of friends and especially pastors, I slowly began to seek out spiritual truth, but along the way I some how lost the Lord's spirit which should have been the forefront of why I was searching. It's like I took what God had intended for me to use to grow in my walk with him and began walking on a road of spiritual knowledge and self righteousness. I think I felt that as long as I knew what truth was then God would accept me.

I knew that it was only in Christ that I could find his righteousness for my sake, but couldn't turn my head knowledge into heart action. It seems that Christian Americans are so easily swayed by our pop culture or our Christian pop culture. Apathy has become - not only a characteristic that is accepted or tolerated, but an entirely new form of Christian living all together. If I counted up the minutes not hours, but minutes that I have spent with God - I would be ashamed - not because of guilt, but because of sorrow for my own soul.

I posted a few weeks ago on the absence of prayer in my life and my desire to change. I also had a great experience at camp where the spiritual preparation and desire to prepare with prayer had paid off. I have been encouraged lately in those things.

I believe that our generation is in a lot of trouble. I believe that we have made ourselves believe we are right before God because we know what to say and we know what to BELIEVE - our problem is that we have forgotten how to have faith in what we believe.

When we look at the ultimate example of how to live in the scriptures - we should see a couple of things that a lot of people don't point out. (this was made known to me from a friend/pastor).

Our Christ - the lover of our souls was very earnest and serious. But he, also taught with sarcasm and knew how to relate to different people in different situations. The bible however did not make it a point to mention his laughter. It is probably safe to say that Christ had a sense of humor - but my point is that in all seriousness - we have lost touch with an attention to detail and seriousness of our own faith. We live in a society that tells us to tolerate - avoid conflict - please everyone - and not "make a big deal" out of things.

I'll be honest - I think we need to rethink our lives and ask God to renew our thinking and our minds (not just because scripture tells us to in Romans and other passages) - but because we honestly are sorrowful of our own souls - (least of all our own souls and most of all others that we don't know that don't know our Christ). I think we are in trouble and in need of our savior Jesus just as much today as when we first came to know his love.

I might be talking crazy and will admit that possibility because I am human - but sometimes I think reality checks are much more than just saying "hey I haven't spent much time with God lately". We need to check what we believe, what we think we know, what we claim to be true in our lives, and what we really care about, what we really think, what we really say, and what we really have faith in and not just believe.

Please pray for me as I am very far from the God that I thought I was close to.