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.
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.
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