Are the good kids happy?

If I ever write a book someday I think this might just be the title Are the Good Kids Happy? We who have grown up in a Christian home and chosen to follow Christ since the womb are the "good kids". You know who you are, the ones that in the world's eyes have never done anything wrong, who all the parents want their kids to be like, who always seem to make the responsible choice and never disobey. Yeah, WE are the good kids. Sure, we are few in number because we always have dropouts- the secret bad kids that you don't find out about until they have some party scandal and stay-at-home, Bible study mom absolutely falls apart and everyone in the church is praying for that sad family -OR- the kids who go ballistic in college and lose all sense of urgency.

So what is life about? Did we miss the boat and put far too much emphasis on our own happiness and cast aside the eternal mindset that God intended? Should we look less to the immediate pleasures this world is so fond of dealing us and press on to the ultimate goal to win the prize at the end of the race? Where is the race? What happened to the prize being all that you want and strive after in a race? Am I in the race?

Are the good kids happy? The kids that follow Christ and choose not to turn away when so many others have tread their trail and forged in the wrong direction. The kids that our adult culture applauds and recognizes as "mature", "grown-up" and a "great kid" to name a few. And let me be honest, we know those kids, typically nerdy with a social life that consists of either church activities or at the very least church friends that you spend all your time with doing scavenger hunts, playing board games and going on weekend church retreats. So are they happy? Where are the pioneers? Where are the zealous college students bursting to tell the "going out" crowd how ecstatic they are about Jesus? Are are we? I get so tired of hearing about the good kids (yes, I still am one..) and how responsible they are. Anyone can be responsible. Anyone can make good choices. Anyone can be a great kid. The hard thing is can someone do all those things while reaching out with both hands to the ones that aren't doing the good things and love them so deeply and joyously that your excitement and happiness for Jesus spill out on that person?

Can we? Can the good kids be happy? Can the good kids go out and have fun without being in a Christian bubble? Can Christians have fun by the world's standards or are we conforming too much to this world? If I were reading a book, this is what I would want to read about. Stuff that affects us right now, stuff that makes Christianity show its true colors before people sell their souls. We can't preach a message that isn't real, that Christianity is all fun and happiness living in Christ (in our world's standards) but we have to preach what is real, because only that is life-giving and fulfilling. So are the good kids really happy?

Capacity to Sin

Ok, so officially I have been wrestling with this question, or more of a line of thought, for 3 days now. Here it is: Was the life that Adam and Eve had in the garden pre-sin ultimately fulfilling and completely joy-giving, was it complete and without lack? Ok, hold your ponies before you answer. Here's a background. What did pre-sin life look like IN (not for, but they themselves look like) Adam and Eve? I can't picture it because I live in humaness, I have a great, I mean GREAT capacity to sin and mess things up. They didn't. They didn't struggle internally, they didn't fuss or fight, they didn't get mad. But they did think illogically one fateful day that marked time forever. So did they have the capacity all along to sin? How was sin never in the world and then a sneaky snake soon to be slithering comes along and brings temptation with it. Isn't contemplating temptation a sin, so didn't she really sin before she sinned the memorable one? Ok, you free-willers out there, I hear you. God loves them so much that he allowed them the choice to live life and they chose sin. So He built them fallible? They had to have had the capacity to sin in order to sin, right? so how was sin not always in the world if they were able to sin?

Stop. Let me retrace all of the questioning and potential slandering that I just did. I believe in an abundantly powerful, ultimately life-giving and joyous God. But what rubs me wrong is our theological tendency to get so high up that we don't think elementary-like (made that phrase up). My statement is this: "One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet." prov 27:7 (read my last entry). If we are full on God, like they should have been in the garden, why would you want more, how could you think there could be more? Stop looking at it in humaness with a sinful eye. Was it simply a curiousity, but isn't even that wrong and wrong was not in the world. Or here is another example: would you EVER cheat on your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend? Why not?.. so how could you in your very sinful humaness not want to cheat on your other half and yet they wanted in their perfectness to cheat on God? They didn't think about it that way I am sure, but how did they think about it imperfectly if they were perfect?

I'll stop. I have much more to say but I dare not dig my hole deeper. These are just thoughts you see, less of questioning and just thoughts really. And just for clarifications sake- I believe in a God that's ok with me saying stuff like this, just so you know.