Midnight Quills

I wanted a creative title for this post, but I really couldn’t come up with anything other than The Ten Commandments.

Tonight I did the first step in a five week course called “Christian Essentials” which goes through a lot of the foundations of Christianity, and it was really good, but at times, a little tough to stay focussed and patient on.

See, one of the biggest problems that led me away from God in the first place was pride. I was lucky, I guess you might say, to grow up in a Christian household. I was educated at a Christian school, I went to church and Sunday school pretty much my whole life. The problem was, though, that when I started getting too analytical and looking at Christianity (not God, but the religion of Christianity) with an intellectual mindset, my pride set in, and I’d tell myself that I already knew the answers to all of these questions that I was facing, but those doctrinal answers didn’t settle with me – hence I started exploring other paths of spirituality.

There were a few times tonight where I really felt that pride starting to raise its head again, and I fought against just tuning out or anything because once again that mindset of already knowing everything kept coming back.

Funnily enough, though, as I pushed that down, and opened myself to God’s input, there were things that he was able to say to me through the teaching.

We’re never going to know all of God, and we’re never going to have all the answers in this life, it’s just impossible. As many people who know me will know, I don’t have a problem with tackling the tougher questions – and I know that God isn’t afraid of being asked the tough questions either, but we’re never going to get the answer to everything.

Exodus 20:

The ten commandments.

Wow, I’m not exactly sure how to tackle this. I believe that one thing God’s really saying to me about these, is that there’s a reason they are first, separate and in part, independent of the rest of the law in the old testament. It’s almost like these ten commandments encompass the moral code.

There are a few things that God’s really pointing out to me in this passage.

Firstly comes God’s priority in our lives. I know that God’s challenged me repeatedly to ensure that he’s the number one priority in my life; and I do try, but being human, it’s so easy to let other things slide into place above him. For me, it’s even something as simple as studying the word, writing this blog – a few times of late I’ve let myself get caught up with my friends to the point where I’m out so late, when I get home all I want to do is go to sleep and I don’t spend any quality time with God. God’s certainly not telling me not to have a social life, not by a long shot, but he expects to be number one in my life – and in everyone else’s life too.

Secondly, somethign else really stood out to me, and that was about the sabbath. This ties back to the early stages of Genesis. I had a brief conversation last night about whether you can be a Christian and also accept/believe in the theory of evolution. To be honest, I’m starting to wonder whether I really can do both. I’ve said over recent months when it’s been raised, that I think you can, because the story of creation is allegorical, and in the long run, doesn’t change the foundational facts of Christianity that I went through last night.

Reading this passage again, though, for the first time in probably quite a few years, leaves me questioning that. God states quite clearly in the ten commandments, that he created the Earth in seven days, hence why we keep the sabbath holy.

One big question evolutionists like to ask creationists, of course, is that if God did create the Earth in seven days, then why is it 14 billion years old? Why all the evidence for evolution? Cosmological, archaeological, palaeontological, genetic, etcetera.

Well one thing’s standing out to me at the moment, and that is to live a life that is trusting in God, regardless of what the world says. God is beyond the physical, the natural and the scientific – and when it comes down to it, I still bring my faith back to those core beliefs, of God’s truth, of Jesus’ death and resurrection, of salvation through grace and faith.

That’s all I have on that topic at the moment, but I feel it might be coming sooner than later, that God’s going to start reopening my intellectual mind, and we can start going over some of those bigger questions. We’ll see, I’ll trust in him, but watch this site, because there could be some more discussions coming soon.