Around the start of my blog, I wrote about how God can allow evil in the world. At the time, I kind of had the mindset that non-Christians especially tended to only think about how God is supposed to be love, and forgot about his holiness and perfection. Recently I realized that the exact opposite also seems, to me, to be true; Christians tend to forget that God is love in the face of his holiness and perfection.
This is idea came to me as I struggled to understand why I have so much passion for anime and hockey, and so little for God. Anime and hockey, I saw, bring me joy, but being a Christian doesn't always, rarely even. Why? Because my "faith" is so centred on becoming a good Christian. Sure I understand that God is love--how could I not when the whole premise of salvation is based on his love?--but more important to me was, and probably is, his holiness, and how, to be a good Christian, I need to change. In some ways I think Christianity, for me, has become a set of incredibly high moral standards that I always measure myself against, and against which I always find myself lacking. How could there be joy when I'm constantly beating myself up over all my failings?
So if I think that non-Christians focus too much on God's love, I know that I concentrate too much on his righteousness. How can I reclaim the simple joy of knowing God and accepting his love ("I am my beloved's and he is mine")? I'm not sure, but I suspect that if I don't, if I don't find a way to feel passionate about Christ, nothing else that I try to do--consistent devotions, frequent prayers, solitude, etc.--will really work because my heart won't be in it. That's no excuse for me not to try daily devotions, etc., of course, but I don't think I'll ever be able to get past the Sunday school answers to become a real Christian unless I find my zeal for Christ.
