thanks, oswald.

this last weekend was baylor homecoming. talk about nostalgic. i felt like i was reliving my childhood. i think i've more or less developed a love/hate relationship with nostalgia. lots of good memories, but lots of missing my dad. he would be giddy over me being at baylor. 

a friend recently pointed me back to one of the first blogs i wrote about consuming thoughts and flashbacks. i wrote about how sometimes it's easy to grow comfortable in my discomfort and easier to harbor thoughts of being lonely and misunderstood than to find the strength to "choose life" (deuteronomy 30.19). funny that i feel like i haven't made much progress since then, or worse, maybe i've even regressed. 

dr. jim denison at park cities baptist church sends out a daily email essay discussing current events and offering devotional thoughts. in today's he quoted oswald chambers: "to believe is to commit." interesting. does it always come back to this? faith is a choice. believing is committing. that just sounds so cold and distant. chambers claims that in the end, the result of all the believing/committing is finding that "faith is as natural as breathing." what?! i don't know if i agree with that. if it was that natural, would it really be faith?! is faith not always this much of a struggle? 

sometimes...a lot of times...i feel like i'm missing something. i sit in my seminary classes, read my textbooks, listen to other people talk, and i just wonder if i know the same God that i'm reading and hearing about. maybe if i just choose more or commit more, i'll finally get it. but isn't that just some sort of mind game or test of willpower? that can't be right. is it an issue of discipline? like should i make myself read my bible more or pray more? i thought it wasn't about the religious checklist, but if i'm not reading and praying, where does the "relationship" come from? 

i'm sick of knowing ABOUT him. i just want to know him....whatever that means. in the words of my roommate, maybe i just need to "calm the hell down."