The Drain

The waste water from my shower was particularly dirty today.  That's always a good thing.  I think.  It means I was out in the world doing things.

And seeing the opportunities that God gives me to sing of his grace and I simply give a feeble whisper, a whimper.

So today, I went out on a hike in Schabarum park with some fairweather amigos.  Okay, not fairweather.  Just...not my bffls.  Stefanie, Aiden, Brittany, and Luke.  I love them all, but we're not exactly the best of friends, only because we don't know each other well enough to be.  So we hiked and chatted and, turns out, Luke claims to be a hardcore Believer, too.  I knew this about Stefanie and Aiden, but Luke surprised me a little.

And I got really conflicted as the day went on.  He kept talking about how he'd turned from drinking and smoking because of Christ and his faith was the only thing that made him change.  But he still had his flaws and his off-color jokes.

And throughout the day, as Aiden vented about him once he was gone, I found myself questioning the legitimacy of his faith and wondering if he even meant it.  Yeah he wanted to go to Biola, but what does that even mean?  Plenty of "Christians" go to Biola, but it doesn't have to mean anything.

But who am I to judge?  I was telling Stefanie tonight that James was talking about faith without proof, without works, being dead.  Well, his faith kind of has proof, if he's given up smoking and drinking and now plans on going to Cal Berkeley in a few years.  There's proof there.  I can't know his heart.  I can't judge the validity of his faith based upon the 5 hours we spent together today.

And this is a distracted end to a blog because I'm on the phone and ichat at the same time and cannot multitask.