Disclaimer: This is a sort of rambly blog where I try to straighten out my thoughts. Not everything I conclude is something I will stick by, not everything is true just because I, in this moment, declare that it is true. In a few weeks I'll probably go, "No, that isn't right." This is a constant inner wrestling for me, this works thing.

For my non-Reformed friends, these are thoughts from a Reformed theological background. I'm not, by the way, 100% adhering to Reformed theology. But I AM trying to figure out how it works to see where it makes sense and where it doesn't, if there are places where it doesn't. Doctrine is a tricky subject, since it is an established way of interpreting the Bible, not the Bible itself, but it is SO important to me and my personality to have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I want to know not just what to read but how to understand it. So I continue searching for doctrinal truth--even in the nonessential doctrines.

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I need to stop feeling threatened by the soccer moms. But first I need to figure out why I let myself feel threatened by them. Anytime I am overly harsh in judging a certain group of people, it's usually because there is fear associated with them. Sometimes it's a fear that I'll become like them; sometimes it's a fear that I'll never be like them. With soccer moms, it's the latter.

My mom has a similar struggle. She's the "younger brother" in the tale of the two sons (also known as the parable of the prodigal son), and whenever she encounters an elder brother type--which you find everywhere in church--she feels threatened by them, because she won't ever measure up.

So this is a problem with my own elder brother syndrome--the desire to measure up and the fear that I won't. I always want to make it a "them" problem, but it's a "me" problem. My heart isn't right with God. My heart isn't okay with the truth of the Gospel, the truth that I do not need to measure up. It's a blow to pride. If my salvation is won by anything other than my own efforts--by God's sovereign choice or by Jesus' perfection which covers me--I have nothing to pride myself on. And I have a real hard time with that.

So at heart, this is a pride issue, for me and my mom. I have to face up to my own prideful heart and bring it to the foot to the Cross. And I am going to have to do that for the rest of my life.

I've made it about everything but pride. I've made it about love. How can God love me if I don't measure up? I can't understand a love that isn't won, that isn't brought on by achievements. Why does God love me? And it isn't the same kind of struggle that the pop Christian artists on the radio croon about right now. I want to know theologically how God's love works if it isn't based on me as a person. Because I've heard enough now to know that God doesn't love me because of anything I did or even who I am. He saves me because He chooses to save me.

Wait a minute, I was talking about why God loves me and now I'm talking about why God saves me. They're two different things; I gotta keep that straight. Hm.

Stephen's insights:
-God's love looks like not annihilating Adam the minute he ate the apple.
-God's love looks like not obliterating the entire world at the time of Noah, and instead saving Noah and his family (who were not perfect by any means).
-On top of that love, there's the special love He pours out on His chosen people.
-So God's universal love looks like restraint? Long-suffering is the way the Bible puts it.
-We make God suffer? Until we are wholly changed in the new heavens & new earth.
-He chose to give the Ninevites the option to turn to Him, which they did for a short period of time.
-God loves you on the bottom level of His love for all His creation, and then God loves you again when He poured out the blood of His Son for you. God loves you twice, in a way. I guess you could classify God's love into two categories, His general love and His saving love.
-If God loved you for who you are, then it would not be because of something God gave you. You have to stop originating with Stephanie. You have to start originating with where Stephanie came from.

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