Couple day update

I can't really remember very well the moment of my final disbelief.  I guess that's why I have this blog in the first place, so I can remember things... ironically, the point of remembering things is so that I don't fall into disbelief.  Now here I am blogging so I remember how it came about.  So anyway, I'll describe the moment, then I'll comment on my feelings over the last few days.

It was Friday the 16th I believe, but I could be wrong.  Earlier that week I had decided to go on a fast.  My fast started on Friday, and the hunger hit me hard that morning.  About midday, I wanted to start reading papers.  Along with my normal hopeless distractedness, I began to think about how hungry I was.  Suddenly I was absolutely filled with rage.  I hated the idea of fasting because I saw it as a hopeless endeavor to cry out to a God who had been ignoring me all along.  I was furious, and in my mind I pounded my desk.  It was so clear to me at that moment that there is no way I could be intellectually satisfied with the conclusion that I was ever being worked on by God.  God had not called me as his child, and that was why I still struggled with all the trappings of the flesh.  That was why I had no power to overcome sin, and I knew in that moment that if I was an unbeliever, then there was nothing more that could be done, and I stood up, and went and got some food.

Feelings have been quite absent the last few days.  That first day was a day when I was angry, then sad when I listened to the Ravi Zacharias sermon.  I longed for the idea of "deep calls to deep".  Especially since, if I could describe the way I see the world now, it's shallow.  As if there's nothing really underneath the surface of my experience.  But the strangest thing about my feelings is how little I've actually cared about my new status as an unbeliever.  Strong feelings one minute, by the next hour, nothing.  There's got to be some sort of psychological mumbo-jumbo that can explain that.   Anyway, most of the time I feel disinterested in and disconnected from my disbelief.  Then I listen to a sermon about the way that God sees his children... and I feel angry that I would consider going back to that, and that my feelings could start to well up about that hopeless mess of sanctification by faith, as if the Spirit really had any interest in working on me.  Oh look... now I feel hate.

Finally Faithless

2:30 AM on 19 November 2012 

I’m no longer a believer.  Actually it’s been a couple days since I've been a believer.  I honestly cringe at the idea of actually explaining this again, but for the sake of remembering this for the future, I will do so one last time.

I joined Coram Deo about 4 years ago during the “Gospel-Centered Life” series.  I entered through the “side door” of their Missional Communities with my girlfriend at the time.  She and I were looking for a church we could both enjoy, and Coram Deo seemed to fit the bill.  At that time I was in the middle of changing from a Semi-Palagian theology to Calvanism.  I’ve never seen a church like Coram Deo, one that has such a firm grasp of the gospel, and like Luther, seeks to beat it into the heads of their community less they forget it.  Yet along with that, Coram Deo has a firm grasp of the Bible’s doctrine of sanctification.  They understand that as we view Christ in the Gospel, we are made into his image (2 Corinthians 3:18) and that the Holy Spirit moves in our lives as we believe the Gospel (Galatians 3:5).  Yet it is this very doctrine that brings me so much doubt.  How have I changed?  Defeat.  Defeat, and more defeat.  That is my gospel journey over the twelve years of supposedly being a believer.  If the Holy Spirit lives within me, then where is his power?  Why have I only changed in ways that can be accounted for by the fact that I have lived for so long within a gracious and forgiving community?  I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer, and at this point I am barely alive.  I know that feelings must be checked with facts, but these are the facts.  The Holy Spirit has been powerless within me, or he is not within me at all.  And the truth of the matter is, I really don’t care.  The Father freely chose me by his grace when I was in my sins… and yet I don’t really care.  He saved me when I deserved hell, and will receive hell without the faith which he graciously gave me, and it all falls on me with no more weight than the imperceptible dust which falls on my head now.  

How can one be saved when he cares so little for his salvation?  Answer, he cannot.  The lifeless bodies of Ezekiel could not will themselves to grow new ligaments, new hearts, new lungs, and neither can the faithless will themselves the faith to believe.  The Lord must call us to life from the grave, and salvation from death.  I don’t particularly care about Hell, and how can I if I am unsaved?  The unbelieving may care about a Hell of fire, but not the Hell of God’s wrath.  We seek our own good without a care of facing a God of judgement, or at least we prefer our own wills over his.  And so we go on unbelieving.  We can’t believe, because we do not care.  And so my only conclusion is that I am numbered among the unelect.

I still to this day believe that the Atheists with whom I have had conversations, to whom I have listened via Podcast, or books, or dialogue, all have a confidence which is unmerited.  I don’t think they have adequately come to terms with the Bible’s self-demonstration of divine origin.  I haven’t heard any of them explain the Bible’s collection of risky, accurate predictive prophecy, nor the resurrection of Christ as described by the physician and historian Luke.  Especially in light of the fact that many Biblical fragments predate their supposed imperial conspirator, Emperor Constantine.  Perhaps the day will come when I laugh at this statement, and God will turn out to be truly nonexistent altogether.  But at this point, I believe that the Bible is true, and I believe in Christ, but I do not believe on Christ for salvation.

Can feelings be changed?  It seems that the answer is locked away in the untenable.  If I were to seek Christ in the early morning hours before feelings of doubt and despair have a chance to get in my way throughout the day, then perhaps I can redevelope the ability to feel my faith.  Ravi Zacharias said it well when he described the sensitivity of a wound “There’s a sensitivity to the spot placed there by God to say, ‘Protect it! Protect it!’ You keep doing damage to that and you will wound it in an even greater way.  What happens then when emotions lose their sensitivity?” Continual insult to a wound will cause the feelings to become dulled.  There is a possibility that I simply don’t care because I have lost somewhere my ability to feel.  I don’t really care about most people when I really think about it.  Ravi went on to explain that many famous preachers have gained their profession because of a renewed commitment to reclaim the early morning hours.  Well… then I guess it really will be a work of God because there’s no way in Hell that I am ever going to finally reclaim the early morning hours.  I might as well be trying to take the One Ring back from Mordor, right off of the hand of Sauron.  It simply will not be done, unless God is at work in me.  And I see no reason why he would suddenly start working on me with some kind of great power now when he has not done so in the past…

Yet, if he was predictable, he wouldn’t be God.  Yet I hold out no hope.  You pray for me, reader.  Whoever you are who has read this far.  You pray for me; I will not pray for myself.  I hold out no hope that God hears me.  He has been cold and ruthless to me, and I don’t hunger for him anymore.  And I don’t really care.