Tag Archive for: Feelings

Does the scientific evidence fall short of proving the fine-tuning of the universe? Should Christians regularly “feel God’s presence”? And since there are minor differences in the Gospels, does that disprove biblical inerrancy? In this midweek podcast episode, Frank tackles three more BIG questions from our listening audience along with questions like:

  • What are the 3 levels of fine-tuning and does it only occur here on planet Earth?
  • Can the fine-tuning argument alone actually prove Christianity is true? And can all truth be explained through science?
  • Where exactly are Heaven and Hell?
  • What’s the true meaning of Christmas?
  • Is loving God an emotion, a feeling, or a decision?
  • If God chooses not to reveal Himself to us is that proof that He doesn’t exist?
  • What’s a great question to ask your skeptic friends?

Have a question you’d like Frank to address in a future episode? Send it to hello[at]crossexamined.org, and stay tuned for Friday’s podcast to hear more about his recent trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia!

Did you enjoy this episode? HELP US SPREAD THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY BY SUPPORTING THE PODCAST HERE.

Resources mentioned during the episode:

BOOK: Hollywood Heroes – https://bit.ly/3Or82Ax
BOOK: Stealing From God – https://bit.ly/41hLt91
BOOK: Decision Making and the Will of God – https://a.co/d/gQhMD3m
OCC Course: How to Interpret Your Bible – https://bit.ly/3BoEhxD
ARTICLE: Does God Whisper? Part 1 – https://bit.ly/3P0KW47
ARTICLE: Does God Whisper? Part 2 – https://bit.ly/3ZY3hVJ
ARTICLE: Does God Whisper? Part 3 – https://bit.ly/3ZzqOe8

By Alisa Childers

Two men.

Both grew up in Christian homes in suburban America. Both have famous Evangelical fathers. Both made personal decisions for Christ and became actively involved and well-known in ministry. One walked away from his faith and became a secular humanist. The other has become one of the top apologists and defenders of the Christian faith.

Who are these two men? The first is Bart Campolo, son of evangelist and author Tony Campolo, and the other is Sean McDowell, son of evangelist and author Josh McDowell.  Why did their fairly similar paths lead them to such radically different destinations?

​Recently, the two came together to have a discussion on Premier Christian Radio entitled, “Why Bart Lost His Faith, Why Sean Kept His.” It was a fascinating discussion, and the thing that most struck me was the reason they each gave for having become a Christian in the first place. Campolo described how he converted to Christianity after finding a youth group he connected with and attending one of their retreats:

There’s hundreds of kids there. It’s Saturday night, there’s candlelight and firelight and everybody’s singing “Our God is an Awesome God,” and “We Love You Lord.” And in the midst of that kind of environment I had what I guess you would call a transcendent moment…I felt something. It felt like there was something happening  in that room that was bigger than the group. I felt like I was connecting to something. And in that moment ….that was God.

I heard something. It was real to me. People that don’t believe in transcendent experiences—I always think like, “You haven’t been to the right concert… You haven’t used the right drugs. You haven’t fallen in love with the right partner.”

These experiences are real, and I think whatever narrative you’re in when you have one, it confirms that narrative. If I would have had that same transcendent moment with my friends in a mosque in Afghanistan, it would have confirmed Islam to me. But I was in the Christian world, so from that point on, Jesus was real to me.

In Campolo’s own words, he became a  Christian because of a transcendent experience….a feeling that resonated deeply in his heart.

Later in the conversation, McDowell gave his reason for becoming a Christian. Having believed in Christianity as far back as he can remember, he experienced some serious doubts about his faith when he was a college student. When he shared his doubts with his father, his dad encouraged him to not believe something simply because it’s what he was told. He urged him to investigate the evidence for the truthfulness of Christianity for himself, and to reject anything that was untrue.

​After doing some significant evidence investigation, McDowell arrived at the conclusion that Christianity is true….and this is the reason he is a Christian. His faith was not built upon a “transcendent moment,” but on a painful search for objective reality.
Campolo’s Christianity was confirmed by experience, while McDowell’s was confirmed by evidence. Here are 3 reasons why Christians should be evidential investigators, instead of experience junkies:

1. You can be talked out of an experience.

Like Campolo, actor Brad Pitt was raised in a Christian home by Evangelical Christian ministers. In an interview with GQ magazine, he remembered experiencing some of the same feelings at rock concerts that he felt in Christian worship services:

I remember going to a few concerts, even though we were told rock shows are the Devil, basically. Our parents let us go, they weren’t neo about it. But I realized that the reverie and the joy and exuberance, even the aggression, I was feeling at the rock show was the same thing at the revival. One is Jimmy Swaggart and one is Jerry Lee Lewis, you know? One’s God and one’s Devil. But it’s the same thing. It felt like we were being manipulated. What was clear to me was “You don’t know what you’re talking about—”

Pitt wondered if the whole thing was a manipulative sham, which led him to ask some serious questions at a very young age.

If a feeling or experience is what a person’s faith is built upon, it can be easy to re-interpret that experience or explain it away—especially when confronted with the arguments of a smart skeptic, or the crushing reality of suffering and evil.

2. Your heart and feelings lie.

The prophet Jeremiah described the human heart as “deceitful above all things and desperately sick.” Proverbs 3:5-7 tells us not to “lean on our own understanding.” Jesus described the human heart as being filled with thoughts like murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. Proverbs 28:26 tells us that whoever trusts his own mind is a fool.

In other words, do not, under any circumstances, follow your heart.

This, of course, stands in stark contrast to the themes we are constantly encountering in entertainment and on social media. However, when it comes to spiritual beliefs, trusting our hearts and following our feelings can lead to all sorts of aberrant theology, sinful choices, and a distortion of true Christian faith.

3. You can fall back on evidence in times of doubt or suffering.

One of the greatest apologists and evangelists in recent times is a man named Nabeel Qureshi. Qureshi grew up in a Muslim home, and after years of testing the claims of Christianity and the claims of Islam, he left Islam and became a Christian. He paid a dear price for his obedience to Christ, leaving his devout Muslim family heartbroken and relationships strained.

​At the peak of a respected, growing, and fruitful ministry, Qureshi received news that he had stage 4 stomach cancer….at the age of 33, and with a new baby in tow. He believed God was going to heal him—that there would be miraculous intervention and an amazing testimony to tell about the healing power of God. A little over a year after receiving his diagnosis……he died.

Qureshi documented his cancer journey on youtube, and in one of the early videos, he expressed being a bit rattled by this grim news. However, he went back through his theology and the evidence for his belief in Christ. On his deathbed, looking worn and like a shadow of his former self, he glorified God by doing the exact same thing. He expressed his wonder and disappointment that he hadn’t been healed, but he testified to the existence of God and the truthfulness of Christianity based on what he knew was true.

Qureshi was faithful to the end—despite his suffering and despite any doubts that crept into his mind in his last days. This was because he had a firm understanding of truth to which he submitted his feelings. His faith was not dismantled by doubt, suffering, or even excruciating pain.

At the end of the day, Christianity isn’t always going to feel good. Just ask the apostle Paul who was kidnapped, beaten, whipped, imprisoned, ridiculed, shipwrecked, and stoned—all before he was finally beheaded. Christianity isn’t always going to feel like it’s “working.”

Becoming an evidential investigator rather than an experience junkie led former atheist J. Warner Wallace to an unshakeable conclusion:

I’m not a Christian because it “works” for me. I had a life prior to Christianity that seemed to be working just fine, and my life as a Christian hasn’t always been easy.

I’m a Christian because it is true. I’m a Christian because I want to live in a way that reflects the truth. I’m a Christian because my high regard for the truth leaves me no alternative.

In times of deep doubt or great suffering, it’s wonderful to know that Christianity is true— whether we feel it or not! 

Recommended resources related to the topic:

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek 

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl (Book)

Defending the Faith on Campus by Frank Turek (DVD Set, mp4 Download set, and Complete Package)

So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)

Fearless Faith by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace (Complete DVD Series)

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Alisa Childers is an American singer and songwriter, best known for being in the all-female Christian music group ZOEgirl. She has had a string of top ten radio singles, four studio releases, and received the Dove Award during her time with ZOEgirl. In later years, Alisa found her life-long faith deeply challenged when she started attending what would later identify as a Progressive Christian church. This challenge pushed Alisa toward Christian Apologetics. Today you can read, listen and watch Alisa’s work online as well as purchase her recently published book on Progressive Christianity titled Another Gospel.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/Bb3XlW3

 

By Alisa Childers

Several years ago, my husband and I began attending a local Evangelical, non-denominational church, and we loved it. We cherished the sense of community we found among the loving and authentic people we met there, and the intelligent, “outside the box” pastor who led our flock with thought-provoking and insightful sermons. Sadly, the church started going off the rails theologically, and after about a year and a half, we made the difficult decision to leave. Today that church is a self-titled “Progressive Christian Community.” 

Back then I had never heard of “Progressive Christianity,” and even now it is difficult to pin down what actually qualifies someone as a Progressive Christian, due to the diversity of beliefs that fall under that designation. However, there are signs—certain phrases and ideas—that seem to be consistent in Progressive circles. Here are 5 danger signs to watch for in your church:

 1. There is a lowered view of the Bible 

One of the main differences between Progressive Christianity and Historic Christianity is its view of the Bible. Historically, Christians have viewed the Bible as the Word of God and authoritative for our lives. Progressive Christianity generally abandons these terms, emphasizing personal belief over the biblical mandate.

Comments you might hear:

  • The Bible is a human book…
  • I disagree with the Apostle Paul on that issue…
  • The Bible condones immorality, so we are obligated to reject what it says in certain places…
  • ​The Bible “contains” the word of God…

2. Feelings are emphasized over facts

In Progressive churches, personal experiences, feelings, and opinions tend to be valued above objective truth. As the Bible ceases to be viewed as God’s definitive word, what a person feels to be true becomes the ultimate authority for faith and practice.

Comments you might hear:

  • That Bible verse doesn’t resonate with me…
  • I thought homosexuality was a sin until I met and befriended some gay people…
  • I just can’t believe Jesus would send good people to hell…

3. Essential Christian doctrines are open for re-interpretation

Progressive author John Pavlovitz wrote, “There are no sacred cows [in Progressive Christianity]….Tradition, dogma, and doctrine are all fair game, because all pass through the hands of flawed humanity.” Progressive Christians are often open to re-defining and re-interpreting the Bible on hot-button moral issues like homosexuality and abortion, and also cardinal doctrines such as the virgin conception and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. The only sacred cow is “no sacred cows.” 

Comments you might hear:

  • The resurrection of Jesus doesn’t have to be factual to speak truth…
  • The church’s historic position on sexuality is archaic and needs to be updated within a modern framework…
  • The idea of a literal hell is offensive to non-Christians and needs to be re-interpreted…

​4. Historic terms are re-defined

There are some Progressive Christians who say they affirm doctrines like biblical inspiration, inerrancy, and authority, but they have to do linguistic gymnastics to make those words mean what they want them to mean. I remember asking a Pastor, “Do you believe the Bible is divinely inspired?” He answered confidently, “Yes, of course!” However, I mistakenly assumed that when using the word “inspired,” we both meant the same thing. He clarified months later what he meant—that the Bible is inspired in the same way and on the same level as many other Christian books, songs, and sermons. This, of course, is not how Christians have historically understood the doctrine of divine inspiration.

Another word that tends to get a Progressive make-over is the word “love.” When plucked out of its biblical context, it becomes a catch-all term for everything non-confrontative, pleasant, and affirming.

Comments you might hear:

  • God wouldn’t punish sinners—He is love…
  • Sure, the Bible is authoritative—but we’ve misunderstood it for the first 2,000 years of church history…
  • It’s not our job to talk to anyone about sin—it’s our job to just love them…

​5.  The heart of the gospel message shifts from sin and redemption to social justice

There is no doubt that the Bible commands us to take care of the unfortunate and defend those who are oppressed. This is a very real and profoundly important part of what it means to live out our Christian faith. However, the core message of Christianity—the gospel—is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and resurrected, and thereby reconciled us to God. This is the message that will truly bring freedom to the oppressed.

Many Progressive Christians today find the concept of God willing His Son to die on the cross to be embarrassing or even appalling. Sometimes referred to as “cosmic child abuse,” the idea of blood atonement is de-emphasized or denied altogether, with social justice and good works enthroned in its place.

Comments you might hear:

  • Sin doesn’t separate us from God—we are made in His image and He called us good…
  • God didn’t actually require a sacrifice for our sins—the first Christians picked up on the pagan practice of animal sacrifice and told the Jesus story in similar terms…
  • We don’t really need to preach the gospel—we just need to show love by bringing justice to the oppressed and provision to the needy…

Conclusion:

Identifying the signs is not always obvious—sometimes they are subtle and mixed with a lot of truth. Progressive Christianity can be persuasive and enticing but carried out to its logical end, it is an assault on the foundational framework of Christianity, leaving it disarmed of its saving power.

We shouldn’t be surprised to find some of these ideas infiltrating our churches. Jesus warned us, “Watch out for false prophets” who “come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). So if you spot any of these 5 danger signs in your place of worship, it might be time to pray about finding fellowship in a more biblically faithful church community.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Letters to a Young Progressive by Mike Adams (Book)

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity – Episode 14 Video DOWNLOAD by Frank Turek (DVD)


Alisa Childers is an American singer and songwriter, best known for being in the all-female Christian music group ZOEgirl. She has had a string of top ten radio singles, four studio releases, and received the Dove Award during her time with ZOEgirl. In later years, Alisa found her life-long faith deeply challenged when she started attending what would later identify as a Progressive Christian church. This challenge pushed Alisa toward Christian Apologetics. Today you can read, listen and watch Alisa’s work online as well as purchase her recently published book on Progressive Christianity titled Another Gospel.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/Ijk76DJ

By Jeremy Linn

How could something that feels so right be called immoral?

If it Feels Right it must Be Right... Right

That is basically the question Imagine Dragons singer Dan Reynolds proposed on a recent interview on the Ellen Show. In the interview, Dan talked about his upbringing as a Mormon and his tendency to rebel against the moral cues of his culture. When he attended BYU (the “Mormon college”), he started sleeping with his girlfriend. BYU somehow found out about Dan’s actions, and the school decided to kick him out. That’s when he asked the question – “Why is this thing that feels right also something that gets me kicked out of college and shames me in my community and made me feel all this guilt?”

Imagine Dragons

Now a few warnings before continuing. I am NOT about to advocate for the moral validity of the Mormon faith. I am also not about to tear down Imagine Dragons – I would say they’re in my top 5 favorite bands. Finally, I am not going to analyze BYU’s response to Dan’s actions or the effect that response had in Dan’s life.

But I do want to point out that in his question, Dan implied that he believed what he was doing was okay because it felt right to do. His assessment of his moral actions was not based on an objective moral code laid out by Mormonism, or any other objective moral code for that matter. It was based on a subjective standard – how those actions felt to him.

This notion is common for people in our culture to hold – if something feels right, it must be morally right. But do feelings actually provide us a solid basis to assess the moral quality of our actions? To address complex questions like this one, I like to start with the most obvious points, and then continue from there. So I will do just that with this question.

One obvious point is that using feelings as a basis for moral assessment doesn’t work logically. If we’re going off a purely feelings-based standard, any action could be morally justified with that standard. For example, I would not be surprised if some people who are charged with child pornography felt that accessing that content was an okay thing to do. Yet they are still prosecuted, and many people who base morality off individual feelings would be outraged by their actions.

Another point is feelings are temporary and can change. What feels right one day may feel not-so-right the next. What if Dan suddenly started to feel like sleeping with his girlfriend was a wrong thing to do? It seems that under the feelings-based standard, the action would turn suddenly from morally right to evidently wrong.

Based on these two concepts alone, it’s clear that feelings are not a solid basis for us to assess the moral quality of our actions. Certainly less obvious points could be thrown in as well. There’s the question of how to determine who is right when two people’s feelings conflict. Then there’s the question of how to govern with moral principles when the standard for morality is the feelings of each individual in a society.

So what is a proper standard to assess moral actions? Again, I turn to the obvious points to address this question. First, a proper standard involves something that goes beyond what an individual feels since feelings are a poor basis for making moral judgments. Second, the standard is one that will not change quickly, as moral assessment would be nearly impossible if the standard can change on a dime. Third, the standard must transcend cultural norms in order for us to be able to evaluate the moral actions of people from a different culture.

This criteria for a proper moral standard is in line with theism – the notion that a good and personal God exists. In theism, goodness is inherent in God’s nature, and thus the moral standard comes from reflection about God’s nature. This nature goes beyond individual feelingsnever changes, and transcends cultures.

It is possible that a non-theistic standard could meet the same criteria. But whether a moral standard comes from a theistic or non-theistic viewpoint, one thing’s for sure:

If something we do feels right, it does not necessarily follow that we are doing the right thing.

 


Jeremy is an accountant for a law firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s also going to Bethel Seminary for a graduate degree in a program called Christian Thought (basically Apologetics!). Outside of Apologetics, Jeremy enjoys sports, playing guitar, and making videos.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2BijtEO

By Natasha Crain

A few days ago I felt a rather large, firm lump on my body.

My first reaction was, “What on Earth is that?”… followed closely by, “Oh my gosh. This could be it.”

Honestly, I started to panic. I know I’m at a higher risk for certain types of cancer and I imagined the worst.

My doctor wasn’t able to get me in for five days. I spent that five days consumed by Google research—diagnosing myself, guessing what stage cancer it would be if I had it, and looking at 5-year survival rates for the various stages. Every time the kids were occupied, I would quickly grab my phone to Google something new about the size, shape, and texture of my unwelcome lump.

I eventually concluded that there was a pretty good chance it actually wasn’t cancer given the characteristics of the lump. I was still scared, but the more logical side of me believed it was more likely than not to be benign. When the morning of my appointment rolled around, I went in with the hope of reassurance.

That didn’t happen.

The doctor said he was “pretty” confident it wasn’t cancerous. I asked him if “pretty” confident meant something more like 51 percent or 90 percent, thinking he would say 90 percent. He replied, “More like 51 percent.”

The words hung in the air for what seemed an eternity. This is just as likely to go either way. 

The doctor gave me an urgent referral for the various tests needed to determine what was going on later that day. I went home and had some very dark moments.

Fear consumed me. I prayed with desperate, tear-covered pleas for health.

I felt absolutely nothing back from God.

Just a menacing silence.

And at that moment, the voices of so many skeptics filled my head…

Why would God be so hidden at a time like this? Is He really there?

As an apologist—someone who knows well the evidence for God’s existence and the truth of Christianity—I knew what I would say to someone else asking that question. I could talk all about evidence and the philosophical reasons for divine hiddenness.

But at that moment, I didn’t want any more evidence. I didn’t want to make a case to myself for the truth of Christianity. I didn’t want to weigh facts to see what was most reasonable.

I wanted an experience.

I wanted a feeling.

I wanted to be overcome with the presence of God, with a feeling of peace, or with a supernaturally-given reassurance that I was going to be OK.

None of those things happened. And in that darkest of moments, I understood more than ever why experience so often trumps evidence… for both skeptics and Christians.

When Experience Trumps Evidence for Skeptics

Christian apologist Sean McDowell and the “Friendly Atheist” blogger Hemant Mehta were recently on the Unbelievable podcast by Justin Brierley. It was a fascinating discussion on what both Christians and atheists get wrong about the other side. You can watch it here on YouTube or listen through the podcast. I thought Sean was brilliant, and his gracious but pointed comments and questions revealed many of the inconsistencies in Mehta’s worldview.

But one thing stood out to me more than any other. Someone asked what it would take to change each of their minds about what they believe. Mehta (and I’m paraphrasing) said that he’s heard all the kinds of evidence that Christians offer and there’s really no evidence that could be convincing…outside of a personal experience.

This was absolutely intriguing to me. He had spent much of the discussion explaining how he doesn’t believe because there’s no evidence for God’s existence, but when pressed on what would change his convictions, he acknowledged that there’s no objective evidence—evidence outside himself—that would change his mind. It would have to be a personal experience (and he said he would question even that).

His comment made me reflect on years of hearing from skeptics through my blog. Though the reason for unbelief is almost always framed as “lack of evidence,” the comments typically come sandwiched with a list of experiential issues:

I’ve never experienced God doing anything in my life even when I desperately needed it.

God never answered my prayers when I was a Christian.

If God exists, he wouldn’t have let my daughter be born with this disability.

I used to be a Christian, but when I was losing faith I cried out to God for a sign, and nothing happened.

Truthfully, I’ve always mentally responded to such statements with, “but these things, logically speaking, don’t mean God doesn’t exist…we have to look at the objective evidence for the whole picture of reality.” And that’s true.

But I can now better understand that experience can be so powerfully negative that we can become closed to considering any evidence outside of ourselves. We naturally trust our interpretation of our experiences over our interpretation of things like the complexity of DNA.

When Experience Trumps Evidence for Christians

People who are passionate about apologetics often lament the fact that so many Christians don’t understand the need for it in today’s world. What we hear all the time from church-goers is that they already believe, so they don’t need all this “evidence stuff.”

As someone who writes and speaks frequently about all the important reasons why we desperately need this “evidence stuff” to be known in the church today, that’s very frustrating. And it can be even more frustrating when Christians say they don’t need it because they have experiences instead:

They’ve felt God’s presence, so they know He’s there.

They see God in their spouse and kids.

They know God is there from that still, small voice inside.

They see God in the beauty of the mountains.

Why do I say frustrating? Let me put on my apologist hat: because experiences are subjective. In a world that is increasingly hostile to the idea that Christianity is true, Christians need to be able to point to something outside of themselves as evidence for their beliefs. If your child says they don’t feel God, and you say you do, how helpful can your personal experience be to them? But when you can point to the objective evidence for God’s existence in the world around them, the historical evidence for the resurrection, and the evidence for the reliability of the Bible, you’re able to ground their faith in something you can mutually access.

However, just as powerfully negative experiences can trump evidence for atheists, powerfully positive experiences can trump evidence for Christians. What they’ve experienced has felt so certain that the value of outside evidence seems to pale in comparison.

What, Then, Is the Value of Objective Evidence for Anyone?

Through this brief ordeal, I’ve understood more than ever that nearly everyone trusts, by default, their experiences more than objective evidence. And frankly, it’s experience that we desperately want. Fine-tuning arguments schmarguments. We would all rather take a powerful feeling of God’s presence any day.

What, then, is the value of apologetics?

A lot. But I’ll stick with three points.

  1. For those who have had powerfully negative experiences, apologetics remains a way to compare our subjective experiences to the objective evidence for the truth about reality… when we’re not grieving. Apologetics may be of very little use for most people in desperate times, but that doesn’t negate the longer term need. When we teach our kids to build a faith based on evidence, it doesn’t mean that when difficult times come they will necessarily resort to a simple response of, “No matter how I feel while pondering if I have cancer, I know Christianity is true!” I certainly didn’t. But it does mean that over the longer term they will have the tools needed to assess their personal experiences in light of objective evidence. Ultimately, confidence in the truth of Christianity—grounded in good evidence—gives people well-justified eternal hope that brings perspective to our (often tragic) negative experiences.
  2. Similarly, for those who have had powerfully positive experiences, apologetics provides a needed check against reality. Having hope without good reason is a delusion. We shouldn’t be content to assume God is there only because we had a powerful feeling while the praise band played. It’s also safe to assume that no one will live an entire life of powerful positive experiences—every Christian goes through times when God seems far. When powerful positive experiences become more distant, it’s easy to doubt their validity. Learning apologetics helps keep us grounded when the experiential highs wear off.
  3. For those who haven’t had particularly powerful positive experiences, apologetics provides conviction instead of a feeling that the lack of an experience means a lack of God’s existence. When I was a teenager, I went to a youth conference where the speaker stirred up a lot of emotions and many kids in the room were crying. I wasn’t. My youth leader pulled me aside and said, “Natasha, I noticed you aren’t as emotional as the others here. Are you sure you’re close to God?” I’ll never forget that assumption that closeness to God equals a highly emotional experience. If that’s the expectation, and you don’t experience God as you would like, you can quickly assume He just might not be there. When we teach our kids the objective evidence for the truth of Christianity, however, they gain a conviction of their beliefs and realize faith isn’t about waiting for a certain experience to happen.

I eventually got in for all the testing to determine what the lump was all about. It was the longest few hours of my life but ended with the best possible news: it was nothing but a common benign cyst that required no further testing or procedures. I was free to walk out.

I got to my car and cried tears of relief.

And now here I am, back to life as normal… but I want to acknowledge that there are many who don’t get this good news. I have several friends with cancer right now. They are living with the day-to-day uncertainties that consume your every waking second. I almost didn’t write this post because it seems too easy to write when you are no longer in the circumstance. I hope it will be taken in the spirit in which it was intended, however: a simple reflection on something I learned during a (relatively) few moments of desperation.

 


Natasha Crain administra su blog de apologética cristiana para padres, ChristianMomThoughts.com. Obtuvo su MBA en Marketing y Estadísticas en UCLA y consiguió un certificado de apologética cristiana de la Universidad de Biola. Actualmente reside en California con su esposo Bryan junto con sus tres pequeños hijos.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2QG02f7