Re: My life of gaming: A closing chapter
@Jason SW,
Your story sounds like an echo of my own in some regards. You are not an atheist; you are a skeptic. I usually tell people that the difference is that a skeptic is one who cannot believe in god, either because he feels a lack of faith or cannot justify turning his life over to someone who's existence only seems like a myth. an atheist is one who will not believe in God; his heart has been hardened against the concept either by personal pain or the pain of others, chaos and turmoil, possibly even the very knowledge he seeks in life and its many circumstances, perhaps even going so far as to make such a conscious decision because he or she does not wish to be perceived as weak or a simple minded blind follower. I need point out that some of what I've written may sound harsh, which is not my intention. I respect such people either way, and while I may engage them in a civil discussion on their beliefs because I am intrigue
d on how they claim to hold consistently to them, I will never attempt by any means to put them in a situation that is either offensive or awkward. it goes against everything I believe for one thing, but also , because it's harder to convince someone about something you believe whole heartedly to be true and the single most important thing in life if said person is angry or upset with you.
it is my personal belief that from the moment a child begins to articulate, the question of why becomes a matter of great curiocity. Why and all of the subquestions, as I tend to refer to them, such as what, who, how, where and when are matters that implicitly and explicitly govern the decisions ones makes in life, from how one treats people to how one reacts to situations that arise, to where one goes and when. I believe that why is such an important question that unless something within you has died or you have died yourself you will continue to ask in some form or a
nother, perhaps the most common of which is, "Why am I here?" Even as a Christian I must still ask that question if only to attempt to figure out what God's will is for me personally, given that I am my own person and I am not to live someone else's life. The difference now is that I ask the question of god rather than asking myself and being left to ponder it alone, which brings us to the question of who God is.
I could walk you through the various doctrins that exist on God and his nature; he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, eternal, holy, perfect. While these help those of us who know God know him better and appreciate him that much more, I don't know that these help anyone who wants to get to know god and begin a relationship with him, thus I'm going to turn to a bit of scripture which I have personally found to be true. James 1:5 says that if anyone lacks wisdom, he or she should ask God, who gives gen
erously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to them. Perhaps there are Christians who would say this only applies to God's people, and yet the writing includes the word "anyone." I bring this up because since I was in a position where I could honestly state that I did not know God and had practically no reason I could see to truly want to know him, particularly since at times he seemed like such a tyrant, I eventually came to where I am now, and I firmly believe I did so because I asked that he revealed himself to me. On April 30th of this year at roughly 9:00 that evening, a service was finishing at a church I was attending. the man who preached that night came up to me personally and tackled one of the hardest questions I had ever had in my life involving faith. He told me that it was not important to change before coming to Christ, but that Christ would change me and make me different. It was not a matter of how mu
ch I believed, but rather, that I believed enough to do whatever it took to seek god himself. it didn't matter how much or how little faith I had, but that I did something with that faith. If incredulity was the problem, there was nothing wrong with admitting that to god himself and asking him to change it, but I needed to make a decision.
I am pleased to say that I made that decision; I was ready to give it all up. all of the success I could see, all of the ladders I knew I could climb, all of the popularity that seemed to be attainable, all of the fame and fortune and materialistic prosperity that everyone talked about had a flaw; it was finite and uncertain. it held no promise. At times I would ask myself the question of why bother to rebuild when someone or something would just tare it all down again. Making that commitment, however, made me realize that there was a reason to the madness we know called life, a greater purpose, a perf
ect plan. many of the questions I had suddenly had answers, and of those that didn't, the possibility that I might know some day or that I was not meant to know but that I could confide in one who knew it all was something I could rest upon. His grace, peace, mercy, wisdom, and everything else about him, all is available to anyone who seeks it.
One of the many things I used to like to do when I was a kid was play around with codes, some of which can be found in writing. One such code is the acronym, a word who's letters are derived from the first letter of other words, sometimes all in one sentence, some times over the span of a few. I'd like to point one out that I've found to be a comfort and a huge help, which is found in a great discourse many have come to know as the sermon on the mount.
Ask and it will be given to you,
Seek and you will find,
Knock and the door will be opened to you
If you followed along to t
his point, you will see that each of the first letters in the above three lines when joined together give us the word "ask," which is the very point of this bit of scripture, and which has been more or less the point of this post. I am not going to speculate as to weather or not god intended for this particular bit of writing to become the acronym above; I don't care to make the bible a conspiratorial and controversial subject, but I do offer my thanks to god with all sincerity for letting it be. All one need do is, "Ask."
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