So I will get to my Germany trip eventually but first there are about a million things on my mind, particularly after reading Vanessa’s blog from the past month. Things are getting pretty hectic around here and I’m finding that procrastination is my doom… but that’s not really what I want to talk about.

The other day I was having a conversation with Sierra and she was telling me that one of her friends from high school had just died in a car accident. She said she Googled her to find here obituary and the first hits were for her blog and her wedding website. How tragic that she never got to see the day of her dreams fulfilled, it was all gone in a second. Another heart breaking thing is she was a Mormon… do I honestly believe that because she wasn’t a Christian and didn’t accept Jesus as the one who paid the price for her soul that she is now burning in hell for all eternity? I don’t want to believe it; I had the same questions when one of my friends died of a drug overdose. I couldn’t cry about it then because if I did then that just meant that I was somehow admitting to something that I didn’t want to be true. It’s all great and fine in theory and when you write it down on paper. I mean honestly how many papers have I had to write at Biola that include John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” Paul and I have been trying to work out what it is that we believe so that we both know where each other stands on particular issues and we both agreed that Jesus is the only have a relationship with God. It is how that actually plays out in the world around me that I have a hard time with. God is a God of grace, love, and mercy, but he’s also a God of justice, and righteousness; he wouldn’t be the perfect being he is without having a balance of all these characteristics. This also just brings me to the question that seems so cliché at Biola, “What about the people who never even hear the Gospel message, like the people in deepest parts of the rainforest?” I have no idea what happens to them, I think that it’s one of those things that I just have to trust that God will hold those people accountable for what they do know. But what about in this case, and my friend who died years ago? I don’t even want to think about it anymore because it hurts too much, I feel like there’s no hope! When Dan Elkins passed away a year ago I was totally heartbroken but I knew in the back of my head that I would see him again one day in heaven, but that hope is just not there in this case.

On another not so related topic… while Sierra and I were having this conversation we got on the topic of faith. I had always grown up in the church thinking that the people in Jesus’ time were totally faithless and I didn’t understand how they could see Jesus perform miracles right in front of their eyes and then just turn a blind eye. But if I’m honest with myself I find that I do the exact same thing. I have heard countless stories of people praying for healing and God touches that person’s life and none of the doctors can explain how it happened. While in Germany I was told another one of those stories where the Tonnes (the people I stayed with) were visited by their neighbor whose son was in a horrible car accident and was going to die that night or the next morning because both of his lungs collapsed and he was severely brain damaged. The Tonnes prayed for his healing and that night things drastically improved. Today he is back in school only a year behind his peer! I look at that story and think, “Praise the Lord, that’s a total miracle!” But do I actually let that sink in and impact the rest of my life? No, I don’t, I let it stay as story and not a living testament that God is still alive and moving today. I am just as faithless as those people who saw Jesus’ miracles.

There are so many other things running through my head right now that I don’t think I can handle writing about them right now. Possibly more of my thoughts will come later on. I know that I am not the only person who struggles with these things; the question is what should be done about it?

Until next time…