life – Page 2 – Spiritual Wanderings

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 23:14-16

14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)

16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

God had already given instructions for the feast of unleavened bread (the Passover), which He reminded the people of here in verse 15, and He also told them of two more feasts to be observed throughout the year. Those two new feasts would be tied to the beginning and ending of the season.

The first feast wasn’t at the very start of the season, though, but rather when the crops had developed enough to give up their firstfruits. The second feast was after they had gathered in the last fruits at the end of the year. Thus they were feasts based on the bounty of nature, celebrating that God had given them some in the beginning, and in greater measure at the end.

Three feasts throughout the year. Converted to our current Gregorian calendar, the feast of unleavened bread would happen towards the end of April, when the firstfruits were well on their way, yet not quite ready to be plucked. The feast of harvest falls in May or June, when the first fruit is completely ripe, and the feast of ingathering comes around October, when the stalks are fully spent and give their last before perishing.

That is their sequential order in our Gregorian calendar, but recall that the Passover occurred at the very beginning of the ancient Israelite calendar. It marked the transformation from the old year to the new. With that in mind, it becomes clear that these feasts are symbols of our lives. The feast of harvest was the feast new birth, fresh life being brought forth anew, like the firstfruits that it celebrated. The feast of ingathering was the end of one’s work, the succumbing to death, and the long winter of the grave. The feast of unleavened bread was the state in between, the limbo betwixt death and rebirth. The bread was unleavened because it represents us still dead in the tomb, but it is looking forward to the fruit that is about to come forth, the life that is about to be restored when the cycle repeats.

Posted on May 9, 2024 by Abe Austin

The Air is Getting Thinner

Just Letting Go)

Sometimes I’m actively, vibrantly living with purpose. I’m trying to identify what my calling is, what God put me here for, what sort of person He wants me to be, and I’m trying to fill that measure day-by-day.

And then at other times, in many times, I just kind of give up on trying and coast. I fill my spare time with mindless media, ignore my personal health, let the house get messy, and don’t really contribute anything to the world.

I feel very disturbed by how low I can go when I just stop trying. I would have hoped that when I tried to coast I would still have a basically meaningful life, but I really don’t feel that way at all. When I stop striving I feel like I drop into a godless world, something vain and artificial and inconsequential. The only options seem to be constant striving or descending into absolute nihilism.

Worldly Decline)

And as I look around at the world, I don’t think I’m the only one this happens to. I think we are experiencing this sharp dichotomy as an entire society. Our world has become more godless and quality everywhere is in decline. Our stories are less creative, our vocabulary is diminishing, our aspirations are waning. We live for Netflix and food delivery and the latest iPhone, leaving behind community, achievement, and virtue.

I believe that we were once a more Godly, more purposeful sort of people. Even if someone tried to let go of God they would still find themselves living a relatively meaningful life because they lived in a cultural atmosphere that was richer and deeper, where the base expectations were higher. Now, though, there is so little standard left to hold you up once you let yourself go. In other words, the air is getting thinner, so you have got to have your own oxygen mask, you can’t rely on breathing what you get from the culture.

Perhaps Jesus saw this when he gave the parable of the 10 wise virgins. In the darkest part of the night we’re just not going to get by with coasting. We have to be intentional about living in connection to God and with purpose, or we will die.

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Abe Austin

The Basis for Following the Commandments: Part Four

Thus far we have discussed how accepting the traditional Western ethics requires us to both believe in the Judeo-Christian God, and that the words of the Bible contain His genuine commandments. There yet remains one core pillar for our testimony, though, which is a belief that God’s true commandments are absolute.

The fact is, there are many today that do believe in God and do believe that the Bible contains His commandments, however they are taken by a notion that these commandments are little more than paternal advice. They think it is ideal to follow the commandments, and that it would be good for other people to adhere to them, but that things won’t be so bad if they personally don’t. What they lack is a testimony that God’s laws are actually imperative.

Traditionally, the commandments have been presented to the Western world as having both a negative deterrent against breaking them, and a positive reinforcement for following them. The negative deterrent is the assertion that breaking the commandments brings suffering, either in the form of divine punishment or simply natural consequences. The positive reinforcement is the assertion that following the commandments brings joy, either in the form of divine blessing or simply natural consequences. The combination of these two is that following the commandments will lead to the most fulfilling, most joyful, most complete form of life that we can experience, whereas regularly breaking them will lead to the most heartbroken, the most painful, the most fractured form of life that we can experience.

So now the questions come to you. Do you believe that God’s commandments genuinely matter? Do you believe that the quality of your life will be always be affected by adherence or resistance to them?

If the answer to any of those is “no,” why is that? As with the other pillars, is there something in your life that prevents you from believing that the highest quality of life can only be achieved by adherence to the commandments? Is there some part of you that insists on finding another way? Would you be willing to experiment with the commandments, adhering to them as a matter of analysis, to see if your quality of life markedly improves?

If, on the other hand, your answer to all of those is “yes,” then you have established that God is real, that His commandments are taught in the Bible, and that following those commandments really matters for your personal happiness. There can be no logical reason not to abide by these principles of traditional, Western ethics. Only weakness of the flesh could cause you to set these principles aside.

Posted on January 11, 2024 by Abe Austin

Trending Towards Death

It is a terrible thing to be faithless, nihilistic, cynical, and depressed. There are many that find themselves in a state where effort seems ineffectual, the future appears bleak, and life itself feels meaningless. Too long in such a state can be a very dangerous thing, as the broken person may begin to consider ways to expedite the end of their miserable existence. Even if not, though, they will continue forward in a sort of waking death, unmotivated to do any of the things worth living for, isolating and numbing, and just letting themselves go. They may reach a “natural end,” but one that was premature and avoidable.

On the other hand, though, one might love life to the point of debauchery. They might become carnal, sensual, eagerly pursuing every pleasant, vibrant experience, trying to live as full and varied a life as possible. But gross hedonism is just as tended towards death as depression. Promiscuous sexuality, drunkenness, risk-taking, late-night parties, and gluttony do not prolong life, rather they burn it out faster, resulting in either an accidental death, or once again, a demise that might be considered natural, though premature and avoidable.

The soul cleaved from its purpose becomes depressed and gravitates towards death, but also the soul that makes its purpose the pleasures of life also gravitates to death. Survival itself is contingent upon finding the true life worth living, and committing ourselves wholeheartedly to it.

Posted on August 17, 2023 by Abe Austin

The Miracle of Seeds

Seeds are one of the most miraculous things I know of, and they have been quietly working their wonders every day for untold years. Seeds usually come in a miniscule package, sometimes no more than a pinpoint, yet from their confines entire trees will emerge, stand for hundreds of years, and produce millions of new seeds of their own.

I also find incredible how the saplings that emerge from the seed is able to take dirt and nutrient from the earth and transform it into stem and leaf. The transformation of material is one of the most strange and mysterious things, and the more we learn of the complex process by how it works the more miraculous it seems.

And here is one more miracle of seeds, most of them have incredible versatility, able to lay in sterile or hostile environments for multiple years, appearing absolutely dead to the world, but will still germinate and grow long after they fell from their parent tree. In some cases, seeds have been known to still grow after laying as a dead husk for more than a thousand years! Somehow they retain the potential for life without food or batteries or nourishment.

When a seed lays dormant, all that it is waiting for is the correct environment. Once it is put in the right levels of moisture, temperature, and oxygen, it finally begins to flourish.

And so it is with people.

I have met men and women who moved through their lives in a catatonic state, feeling useless and reaching for nothing. It can be all too easy to write such people off, to assume that if they have already spent years in this lifeless same state then they will remain there forever.

But these people still have the potential for life—real life. It may be laying dormant inside of them, but that doesn’t mean it is dead. Like a seed, they are often just waiting for the proper environment to flourish, and from what I’ve seen, that proper environment is being brought into the light of God’s love. I have seen how lethargic and passionless men and women fell into the soil of belief, were rained on by the saving power of Jesus Christ, and sprouted towards the sun! Suddenly they wanted to go back to school and get the education they had abandoned, and change jobs for something more purposeful, and begin engaging in their home and family! They started seeing and helping the needy around them, and meeting with their brothers and sisters with sincere purpose, and finding joy and nourishment in the little wonders they had never noticed before.

Not only did they sprout upward, but they also reached further downward, deepening their roots and stability. These people began operating from a seat of power, sure enough to finally thrive.

Before this sprouting, these people appeared to be dead. But they were not dead, they simply hadn’t yet been born. There are many people who are still waiting to start living for the first time, so help plant them somewhere good if you can, somewhere that they can finally open their shell and live.

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 7:6-7

6 And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them, so did they.

7 And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.

We do not know exactly how old Moses was when he left Egypt for Midian. While in that strange land he got married, had two sons, lived as a shepherd, and all the Egyptians who wished to condemn him died. It’s entirely possible that he left Egypt as a young man, and had spent as much as sixty years living this other life. And while we do not know any details for Aaron, other than that he had raised his own family, he too had lived a whole life before this major turning point.

In short, the two men had already lived an entire life, and were quite possibly expecting a quiet sunset to their lives, yet now they were stepping into their greatest undertaking yet. Moses would live another forty years, thus only a third of his life would be spent leading Israel, but it would be the third that defined the whole.