Christian?

I don't know if I mentioned here before, but it's hard to be a Christian.

For the sake of anyone who doesn't know, I'll put down a little background here, Christianity in a nutshell, I hope. I'm sure I'll miss something.

So, God created all life with the idea of us, humans, being able to be with Him. Being with Him is meaningless, however, unless we are able to choose to do so, so we were given command over our own lives. But there are things we can choose which seem good to us, but aren't. Since God makes us, He knows what those things are, so from the beginning He gave us a number of things which will help us choose correctly. First, He gave us a conscience. Then, He gave us the Ten Commandments. Also, He dedicated a part of Himself, called the Holy Spirit, to guide us out. All these things help us make the right choices. God calls the wrong choices 'sin'. All of us make the wrong choices; there's nothing we can do about it. These choices include things like lying, steeling, lusting, and hating. Part of God's nature is that He is good. Another is that He is holy, which pretty much means pure. Because of this, He can't have sin with Him. Everyone will be judged by God, to determine if they have sin or not, and will be able to be with Him. People who are judged to have sin are sentenced to a place called 'hell'. God describes hell in a number of ways, but He describes it as a place of 'unquenchable fire' where people are wailing, a place of death. It's a horrible place. It sounds like a pretty bad deal at this point. But, God made away for everything to be satisfied. We can still be free, He can be both good and holy, and we can still be with Him. He did this by dying instead of us. He also came back from the dead, so that not only would our sentence be satisfied, but death would be done away with forever. Because He's the only one who didn't, and can't, have any sin, He was able take on the judgement of everyone. Ever. Our choice still plays a part in it, though; we have to choose solution for judgement. But, if we do choose it, then we can be with Him.

Now, the way He died was to first come and live here on earth as a human. His name was Jesus Christ when He was here. It's where we get our term 'Christian'. He lived a certain way when He was here, telling people about what He was going to do, about how they could be with Him. He lived without many possessions, moving from place to place, setting an example for people wherever He went. A large group of people followed Him, and we call them disciples. Later on, after He had left the earth, people started calling His disciples 'Christians', after His name.

This is what I'm getting into when I say I'm a Christian. And this is why it's so hard. I live in the richest country in the world right now, and even though I'm among the poor in my country, I'm still richer than most people in the world. So, it's hard for me to identify with Christ and how He lived here. I also try to tell people about what He did for us. But, because of sin, people don't want to hear it. That's a large part of why it's so hard.

To motivate myself, I think of all the people who don't know about Christ's payment for us. I think about how they need to know of this option, otherwise they'll go to hell. I don't know if anyone else has told them, and I don't know how long they have before they die. But I also know that if I run around with as much urgency as the situation would warrant, telling people about sin and what Christ did, about how He could love us that much, they would think I'm crazy. That's another big part of why it's hard.

I hope I've not misrepresented Him here, but I probably have in some ways. It's the best I can come up with right now, and I think it describes pretty well why it's so hard for me sometimes. Why sometimes I don't know if I can take on the name 'Christian'.

tranquility

Tonight, I stayed up far too late. But, it was the first time in a while I've been up this let, even at home, but longer since I've been up this late elsewhere. I was at a friend's house talking after a game night, and we ended up talking until after 3:30 AM. When I left to go outside, all the street lights were flashing, and no cars were on the roads. The wind had died down to just a light breeze, and there was a light snow in the air. Times like that are some of the best in the world. This one was unique. I've been downtown early in the morning before, when there are no cars and all the lights are flashing. I love to walk in the middle of the road at times like that. I've also been in some neighborhood or out in the country when the air is still and the snow is falling lightly. But combining the two was a new experience for me. It made the walk to my car great. I think I still enjoy middle of the country snowy stillness, but I wouldn't mind a few more nights like this.