All or Nothing, revisited / Empty Space

Something has been bothering me for months, and sitting here today I finally realized what it was. I had been turning around and around in my mind the idea of "either things matter, or they don't."

What I meant by that was either our actions and our sins have consequences and eternal weight, or they do not. It's obvious that our sins do have consequences even if we are forgiven of them (example: a baby that results from adultery, which is also an eternal result). It's obvious that even if Jesus forgives you for making all the wrong choices, you still made them.

I was having trouble finding some idea to hold on to to sort of anchor my thoughts.. I felt like I was thrashing around and never colliding with anything substantial as I tried to make sense of how it was possible for grace to exist, and what it could mean, because if it doesn't wipe away the sin completely, then what does it really do? By the magic of external processing, I have just realized that I think an action is categorized as a sin (or not a sin) based on our attitude toward God as we do it (with some sort of exception for mental illness, I guess?), and that alone. Thus grace restores our relationship to God (again and again and again). That's what it does. Because we can't do that on our own.

Acting against what you know to be right, or against what you feel God's telling you, is sin, whereas the same action performed by someone else might not be a sin. And we could be hurt by an action that was not a sin, if someone has good intentions for us. Like if you were allergic to penicillin (spelled that right on the first try, nbd) and someone administered it to you in some sort of medical situation that requires penicillin, thinking it would save your life, but the result was you got much worse and were in much more pain, that's completely different than someone who knows you're allergic and wants to hurt you.

So the reason something is a sin is because it ruptures your relationship with God somehow. It could be you making your own choice despite what you believe God wants for you, thereby supplanting him as ruler of your life and know-er of all that is right (knowledge of good and evil?). In fact maybe that's all it ever is, but it just takes different forms. That's not a very original idea, I admit.

What does this all have to do with my revelation? I think most people, and most especially people my age, are looking for meaning in their lives, for some evidence that whatever we're doing isn't a waste. Either it's a waste, and we should change something, or it isn't a waste, and it's okay to keep many things the same. Either we have time to try harder later, or we are scorning God's gift by not trying hard now. All or nothing.

Living in France is neat, and one reason I like it is because the first thing that jumps to mind isn't "waste of time," when I think of "spending a year after college working in France." But really, just as atoms are mostly empty space, and outer space is mostly empty space, and lots of things in between* are mostly empty space with a few significant little pieces that give the rest meaning and identity, my life here has a lot of "empty space" between moments of importance or significance. Because I work about ten hours a week, and have between 2 and 3 "church things" a week, and the rest is up in the air and can be settled any which way.

So I find myself thinking, "oh, if I am wasting time here, Jesus will forgive me," and then I think, "but wasting time is squandering my brief existence on earth" and then I think, "I love being in my room! The only thing I don't love about it is this fear that I'm wasting time." Then I look at some blogs of women who put up 5-7 pictures of themselves in different outfits posing in different ways every few days, with the designer or store where they got each article of clothing neatly and perhaps painstakingly typed up beneath, and I think "what a waste of time, but also I'm jealous because so many strangers are complimenting their style" and THEN I think, "if what they are doing is a waste of time, then what do you call what I am doing reading these blogs?"

In short, I tried to look at my status as a child of God for confirmation that I am not wasting my time. It didn't work. Because I guess deep down I think things matter. But then, is that being blasphemous? Aka, am I really okay with coming to a conclusion that leaves me feeling sort of ashamed because frankly I can't see myself giving any more effort at this particular moment of my life without it becoming direct, unmitigated legalism? I can only be assured of not wasting my time on a macro level. I can be sure that good works are being done through me (I generally consider Jesus' commands to us to be promises fulfilled by the Spirit in us, a la The Shack), and that God has me here for a reason, which I occasionally glimpse, but the amount I realize his reasoning has no bearing on how good of a reason it is.

But I was not convinced that I am not wasting my time. I thought about what I would be doing if I lived in America instead. In my imagination that, too, was mostly empty space, because summers between school years growing up had their camps and stuff but were largely empty space. School leaves less room for empty space, because if you're in school you probably have friends there who you'll hang out with, and extracurricular activities that take up enough of your time that you don't have as much space to wonder if your life has meaning, and at any rate at the end you have a degree or something. But school is over for now. And even when I worked 35 hours a week last summer, the job I was at was definitely mostly empty space. I sat at a desk for 7-8 hour shifts and staved off the boredom the best I could, then came home to no homework.

Then that one guy made that youtube video about Jesus versus religion and I read a response to it that pointed out that Jesus was, in fact, sort of a fan of rules when he said (John 14:21a paraphrased) "If you love me, follow my commandments." And I said, "Am I really following those commandments? Most of the time I am not interacting with other people, in fact I have been known to sometimes avoid opportunities to interact with them when I am sure that interaction will not be fun or manifestly fruitful." But I am consciously following some of the commandments, some of the time. Here, too, is mostly empty space.

What I realized today was not an answer to my question "so, do things matter or not?", but I realized why I was asking: I was asking because by any reasonable standard, my life right now is a giant waste of time. The internet is full of well-meaning people telling you to seize the day, every day, and to get off the couch. Well, my couch is in a room that doesn't get internet, so often I don't even have the benefit of being on the couch. I am a step down from wasting my life sitting on my couch- I am wasting (most of) my life sitting in bed. -100 points. People say be creative and follow your dreams, that it's always worth it. I believe those people. But I don't even know what my dreams are.

Part of me thinks if we could just find contentment where we are, we would have defeated Satan for good, and the other part of me thinks that's exactly what Satan would want, so that we'll stop reaching higher and eventually just remain exactly where we are, getting too fat to be healthy. This clearly demonstrates the problem of having such a black and white mind as the one that animates my body.

I conclude that we should "just give our best and the rest will come," (thank you Sleeping at Last, this is the second time I have quoted this exact line on this blog) and grace will cover all the other things, but I don't know what my best is, or how to give it. That's life, huh?

[Hahaha this sounds like such an emo rant, but I promise it's not. I feel very even-tempered as I write this, perhaps even peaceful. I know I make myself sound bad and/or boring, but I'm not very afraid of that. I guess because I believe I can't be the only one with these questions. Also, though I guess I believe deep down that things matter, I know I also believe that everything will be okay.]


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*My "in-between" example is a city, especially if you think of it as including the airspace above it and the earth below it. Only the things at about ground-level, which take up a relatively small chunk, determine what city it is.