Inertia

I read a review for "Creation". It's a British film chronicling Charles Darwin's life as he struggled to write and publish his controversial and world-changing book "Origin of Species". Wherein he introduces the world to the concept of evolution and coined the phrase "survival of the fittest." I know the reviewer generally panned it as "uninteresting", but the overall concept was well intentioned, just ill-conceived. What stuck out to me was Darwin's fear of what the book and his theory would do to not just the world, but his wife, a devout Christian. If there is no God, and this is all, life, just a struggle to survive and adapt, and there is no greater Kingdom or purpose what becomes us? When the inertia of intellect and intellect of the Spirit collide, what then? I found myself pondering this. Regardless of your opinions of Evolution or the concept of a Godless universe, or at least a ruddlerless universe. What would it be like if life was devoid of purpose or guiding force? It seems as impossible as God creating a universe in 6 days. Our souls know this doesn't add up. To deny that evidence of God or intelligent designer is the same as denying the fossil record or carbon dating. What then does one make of this conflict? I'm not a scientist, but being as trendy as the next hipster I'm pridefully addicted to jargon and so I desperately want to be an expert on all topics. However, time, my attention span, and my broader interests don't allow me to dive into this arena in anyway adequate to come to anything resembling a definitive answer, and unless someone invents a time machine, no one else can know either really. The reason I bring this up is I had something of a faith crisis the last couple of weeks. I would love to feed you the cliche of I was just struggling and this struggle grew my faith, well, actually it kind of did, but at the time it was as close to an outright denial as I've ever come to. Let me break it down. I was feeling sorry for myself because I still don't have full-time work. On top of that I had a tough week at my contract job. I let this stress really get to me, and to be blunt I was pretty abusive verbally to my family. I'd hear the typical news of the recession on the news, and how the banks get huge bonuses while others lose their house, and how I may be facing that very real specter soon. I thought about everything that went down at Harvest, and how can a church do that to a family. I thought about the quake in Haiti and all the suffering there. About all the innocent children who either died, or were maimed or orphaned. The killer was a conversation I had with Sarah. She told me very honestly, "I don't know who you are, we have to live together, but I can't have a relationship with you while you're like this. I have to treat you like a roommate. I have to protect my kids." I wonder how many men hear something like this from their wives, and never in a million years thought they would ever hear it? And I wonder how many more would know they're right? I knew she was right, and it destroyed me, like nothing else has ever destroyed me. So, I did the mature rational thing. I cursed God. I told Him, "If You're real and let these things happen than you're cruel. If You're not real, than I won't waste my breath because that's all I have left." I would like to say that God showed up right then, but I believe God is not "punked". Whatever a man sows that shall he also reap.
Inertia. Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion. It takes two things to put an object in motion time, and energy. I spent a lot of time being self-focused. I spent a lot of energy on my career. Even when presented with an opportunity to change stopping that selfish train was much harder than I could have imagined. Even when presented with all the blessings I received this summer and fall I resisted. The mass and energy of my past pushed forward despite best intentions.
I got a call today from my mortgage lender today. They are modifying my loan. The 4 months of back payments have been erased and I start with a clean slate on March 1st. Praise God!
I spent the last few months waiting for pre-foreclosure to start, trying to figure out how I was going to come up with the thousands of dollars to keep my family from becoming homeless. Now I have a new deal. It was at the moment when the ruminations of the past few months and weeks coalesced into a single collective truth. Grace makes inertia, inert. In other words grace defeats your past, defeats your literally and figurative demons. Its the hand that stops the wrecking ball. It also defeats the logic of survival of the fittest, because it has no interest in self. It's completely illogical, yet sets the world right. Grace evokes change. Grace is how we evolve. I used inertia in a negative context, but inertia like most things can be used for good or evil. What would my life be like if I consistently wrote? What would my life be like if I consistently sought God in prayer? What would things be like if I consistently read and studied the Bible? What would my life be like if I acted on what I really know to be the truth? What if I gave to the poor? What if I got involved in helping the helpless? What if I joined in on the inertia of grace and love? If this is what I sow, what will I reap?