testing the waters of the blogging world ... an update after my 4 month sabbatical ...

We'll see how long this lasts; I'm jumping back into the world of bloggging. I guess I've been reading the New York boys' thoughts and realized my life was a bit emptier without the blog; also I want to be just like my big sister when I grow up and she started back up...
(the main reason being my job this week is to answer phones at a law office and apparently no one needs a lawyer in the city of Auburn...)

To be honest my heart is not here in Auburn. I'm loving the time with my sister, but due to the nature of being in a transitional phase in life I have been traveling nearly every weekend so I am not really plugged into much. Life becomes void of meaning without relationships and I seem to have a lack thereof this summer. I treasure those I do have but I'm not pouring into others' lives the way I felt that I did at Lee. I think I left my heart somewhere in the Andes mountains... right at the roadblock that kept my weak (& vomiting) body from hiking to Incawasi to meet the Lambayeque Quechua people. I long to be there, or anywhere abroad where I feel more alive and where I sense the urgency of the gospel... but more than this I long to feel those emotions here. The haunting sentence I once read in Jim Elliot's journals runs through my mind - "wherever you are, be all there." Simple but convicting. I have been re-learning through conversations with Chris (and John Piper) about the joy that not only should be present but how absolutely vital it is to my life in Christ and my witness. Without a deeply satisfying joy that transforms my life into a passionate pursuit of his glory and fame in this world, I am nothing. "Come quickly & abide, or life is vain." The nagging question comes to my mind over and over again...I'm so fearful of it I can barely type it...am I really supposed to teach Spanish next year or I am a lazy person who has easily been drawn into apathetic living? I wish I were fully convinced of my decision making skills...

Also due to various conversations and reading R.C. Sproul's Chosen By God I've been thinking on the universality of human corruption...

"there is none righteous, no, not one;
there is none who understands;
there is none who seeks after God...
there is none who does good, no, not one" -Romans 3:10, 12

Total depravity, really? How does one explain to a non-believer that our every action is flawed and when we see people doing 'good' it is actually at its very core self-motivated? As Sproul says we must look at this passage and evaluate what we perceive when we read the word 'good.' In comparison with the deeds of man, many actions may appear good. But in comparison with the perfection of our God and our spotless Savior Jesus Christ, what is good. Do we even have a framework with which to measure ourselves against the perfection of Christ? I think not. By way of the Holy Spirit, understanding our falleness is most definitely central to gaining a proper perspective of Christ's work on the cross. Is it even possible to communicate this truth to a non-believer or is it only by a supernatural work that fallen minds will understand our depravity? As I study I am more grateful for the grace of God that continually interrupts my sinful mind and draws me to communion with Him.