Well, I got a 'stay of execution' on the money deal...thank so many of you for your encouragement and prayers...
Things are going deceptively well, it seems ;>). I am semi-caught up in my work, my time with my kids is increasingly fruitful and sweet, my firstborn is home from college for the summer (and what a conceptual exploration partner she is!), finances are manageable, and my awareness of His patterns of grace in my life is growing.
My job has taken a strange turn. I will begin spending 3 weeks per month in Cincinnati OH (or someplace that is phonetically similar), while still 'living' in California. I am actually starting to get a little excited about it ('he said cautiously...').
And now the bad news...I am woefully behind on this web page and emails. At this writing, I have about 100 emails from you that I have not been able to answer, and have many, many unfinished projects on this page. The Adult Education class is taking so much more research time than I anticipated (but largely because the issues have always been a challenge for me), but I think the material will be of general use to others. I have made SOME progress on the philosophical piece, but it is getting so few brain-cycles at this time...
Many of you have expressed a desire for an easier way to download this material for use in your bible studies and classes. I am trying to figure a way to do this. I do have an anonymous FTP site that I could use, but all of this material is written in HTML 'code' and I don't know how to 'strip' that stuff out and still keep the stuff readable. If any of you techno-gifted types have suggestions, PLEASE send them...thanks.
Two personal notes...
"I cannot believe it! I finally found someone like me, that wrestles with the same questions I do! I thought I was the only one in the world. Thank you for your site--I don't feel so alone now"For those of you who feel this way, be encouraged--God has built a whole lot of folk like us!
Since the time I approached Jesus Christ (in need, honesty, confusion, and fuzzy-faith) so many years ago, I have always inwardly 'feared' that I would one day encounter a fact or a contradiction or a biblical error SO difficult, and SO overwhelming, and SO obvious, and SO certain, that I would be forced to give up this belief I have in the trustworthiness of Scripture. I have looked under a lot of rocks in my day, always fearing a fatal scorpion sting. Honesty has always been an important part of my life, and an even more important lesson from Him. I often approached 'apologetic' issues with a dread that someday, somehow, the 'system of truth' I had mined and refined would prove impossible to hold with integrity.
This is not to say that such a 'fact' would destroy my 'faith'. Indeed, as many of you have likewise admitted in the survey forms, my faith now rests upon multitudes and multitudes of small, incremental, meaningful interactions with the unseen Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, for many of us, the experience of Christ in our daily lives (over time) becomes a much more convincing argument than any apologetic streams could ever be. Granted, I find many arguments in favor of 'Christianity' compelling, but I am not sure HOW anyone could convince me that this Person I have come to know (with the semi-predictable patterns of behavior He manifests in my life at this point) is not real!
But this certainly only makes my problem more acute. For, if I cannot 'argue away' my cumulative experience with an invisible 'roommate' then 'errors' in the bible He loved, taught, lived, and points me to, create in me an incredible tension and maybe 'intellectual schizophrenia'...
God has always seemed to bless my research when I tackled (openly, without preconceived notions or vested interests in outcomes) the hard problems. But I avoided some of the harder ones earlier in my life, probably due to fear and lack of faith in HIS COMMITMENT to truth...
But somehow, I have crossed over that line now...I have now faced a few of the issues that have 'bothered' me, but that I avoided facing in the past--and He has answered my fears in each one! I have probed areas that have been difficult or problematic, only to find His word vindicated. I have slowly come to that point where the data FOR the trustworthiness of scripture is so overwhelming, that even a 'scary' problem can be tackled with joy, enthusiasm, and with the delight of a child opening Christmas presents! And it feels so good! Fear (however small) has been replaced with Expectations of Discovery!
With this freedom, of course, comes the awareness that my lack of faith in some of these matters has probably been a source of grief and perhaps sadness to Him (Eph 4.30). I have availed myself of that 'font' of forgiveness and acceptance, drawn from Immanuel's vein, and so I stand forgiven...I may fear again, but it will never, never be the same...
I would encourage those of you with similar challenges and propensities to consider my experience, and to profit from it...His word is worthy of our trust...