Salt

I have no patience with ambiguity and indecision.

Wavering between what clothes to wear? Just pick a shirt and get on with it already. If you really hate it, then pack the other choice and change in the bathroom at work. Problem solved.

Can't decide what time you want to leave for dinner? X minutes for travel + Y minutes for traffic + Z minutes for emergencies - time of dinner reservation = departure time. Boom. Roasted.

You say you're a Christian, yet you go everywhere but Christ's words for answers to your questioning? You don't like what you read in the Bible, so you rationalize away your stubbornness in following your own will, then claim it's the Bible's fault for being vague? I'm sickened - and saddened - by that double-mindedness. If it is a fault, then I am guilty but I feel no shame in this.

Life is complex for sure, but I think we pretend it's complexities are inevitable, so we sink into philosophizing about social norms, religion and morality....and then do nothing.

Money is useless if you do nothing with it. If it sits under your mattress for years and years, rotting to dust until it crumbles away, then it has been wasted. It doesn't matter how big your pile of money dust is, or how loudly you brag about how much it was worth, it's still worthless because you did nothing with it.

Such is also true about philosophizing, which is, I'm coming to think, just an educated way of saying that you straddle the fence and can't decide on which side you will fall. It doesn't matter how much you talk about morality if it doesn't affect the way you live. It doesn't matter that - seriously now, listen to this, think about it, chew on it - it doesn't matter that you talk about God if you do not live a godly life and if His holy fire is not burning out your heart with uncontrollable, intemperate love.

I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear.

Actually....

No, I'm not sorry at all.

Because there ARE answers to your questions, and there are very concrete principles in the Christian life, whether or not they are easily digestible. The harder you chew on them, the more they will sustain your faith in a God more powerful and loving than you can ever realize. The deeper you chase God into the Bible, the more you will find that His searing, healing love burns off our pride, purifying us like newly forged steel so that we, far from merely mirroring Him, have become Him.

Don't confuse the message with the messenger. I haven't got this whole thing down pat yet, either, but passion to know my Savior has burned away my fear of being misunderstood and, frankly, of being disliked for speaking the truth. The truth means more to me than anyone who cannot bear to hear it spoken. This is neither intolerance nor arrogance. It's love.

The truth of the Gospel is called "salt" and "light" (Matthew 5:13-16, btw), because the truth burns and illuminates that which strives to be hidden, not because it tastes nice and makes things look good.