I've been doing some thinking drinking

Not really. I have been doing regular thinking, and not drinking. But those are almost the same. So I just finished a paper, on Thursday night at 9 30, the first night the office was back on after months and months off...what a friggin shame. I would have given all 3 of my left testicles to watch that show, and now...nothing. Sigh, what's this world coming to when my teachers assign homework due on a Friday? I hate so much about the way that you choose to be....

So, rather than head home to an empty crib and not a lot to do, I've decided to write a little blizzle...or blizzog...or blog for all you white people who read this (pretty much everyone, right?). I was listening to a John Piper sermon today, and he was talking about this passage in Romans 8. As Paul rights, he expresses how all of creation has been subjected to this futility and is waiting to be restored to the beautiful state "of Eden." As I listened he began to speak so passionately about the state of the world, and how awful it is. Then he said this, "If you don't think it's awful than you live in a bubble, and you aren't sharing."

That statement blew me away, first because I thought it was ridiculous. I had a hard time grabbing on to the thought that this is an awful life, that it is nothing but badness...I mean, there is some good stuff right? But as he elaborated, his insight grew enormously. He wasn't talking about how our individual lives are awful, but the idea that this world has become such a terrible place. Hurricanes, genocides, tsunamis, murders, rapes, and the list goes on...it is not just humans who have been depraved, it is creation to. But as he threw this information out there (while making us all feel great down to our little toesies) I wrestled with it. I fought and fought, wanting to believe that we were not at fault. The truth is...we are.

God looked upon the sin of Adam as so outrageous, as so inhumane and hideous that the world became what it is. So we can look at it one of two ways: The first, this is terribly unfair and unjust and unwarranted and lots of other un's....we don't deserve this. Or the second, sin is a lot worse than I thought it was.

We see in Romans 8 just how much God hates sin, how powerfully and passionately he despises sin because of what it does. It's such a foreign thought to us because we love it...and yet all it does is impose itself on our hearts in place of the Creator. So I guess...think about it. Wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, wrestle with that idea. Good luck to you, it's not an easy road to walk.

Until Next Time,
Jake