My church is doing an in-depth study of the Gospel through a program called Porterbook. I meet twice a month with a small group to discuss several units at a time. The four main topics are: Apologetics, God's Story (Exegesis/Theology), Gospel Living and Missional Living.
It is really helping me to gain a better understanding of the gospel and how to engage others in talking openly about religion while also sharing my faith. While living in NYC may seem glamorous, it is a city full of suffering, lonliness and despair... it is easy to become fatigued and overwhelmed with the amount of need I witness everyday. Below is an excerpt I wanted to share; beautiful imagery of God's strength and joy with each new day.
Gospel Living: Looking Foward to Eternity.
A WORLD OF JOY
Every longing in us is a version of our longing for God. That longing may be a distorted version of our longing for God, but it is still a longing for the God we were made to know. C.S. Lewis says, “There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our hearts of hearts, we have ever desired anything else … It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want.”
G.K. Chesterton says:
A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that the especially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daises alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.
