The most humbling part about my faith is the fact that it is so hard to maintain. Yes that right, I struggle with it everyday. It is more then natural to wonder if what I believe is true, if what I am devoting the rest of my life to is the truth, not a partial truth. When in france I used the following example with a group of students? A truth that I believed in was that before they had color tv the world was actually in black and white. For me it was absolute, I was actually looking forward to asking my grandpa what it was like when they invented color? Just because that?s what I believed didn?t make it truth. The real truth is that color has always been real and vibrant. For French students this was hard to accept because their mindset was one of ?whatever works for me is fine and whatever works for you? or that “I believe in a God, just don’t care which one.”

Here is the dilemma, People are completely content to live in their world if it stays their world and no one disturbs it. Even look at most movies, the main premise is that someone disturbs their world, takes it away from what was familiar and comfortable to something they wish against (recently; Bourne Supremacy, I,Robot, Anchorman, King Arthur, Spiderman 2, and some of my favorites like Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind). The main problem with these movies is that rarely will they truly end as life does, as life should. The characters fight so hard to return to what they knew, to what was their life and comfortable. They desire to return to a life unchanged and the same as before whatever incident that had occurred.

What would happen if people would look at their life without some incident occurring, if they could look at their beliefs from the point of view of the truth. I wish that I could have the chance to truly question things without going through what I did (in my testimony) with my depression and suicide attempts before I asked those questions. I know my truth still isn?t perfect, but it?s getting better with every lesson I?m taught. I pray that you will never have to go through the torment I did, that you would simply be able to experence the joy and satisfaction of the understanding I now have.

Take care and may you experience His pleasure,
~paul