Category: Apologetics

Book Plunge for Fun: Mollie McQueen Is Not Having A Baby

What do I think of Lacey London’s second novel in this series? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The first book in this series I found intriguing enough that I wanted to go on and see where the author would go from there. Not only was the story good, but the characters were written in such a way that there seemed to be a personal investment on my part in them. In the first book, I was sure it would end positively, but I wanted to make sure the main character of Mollie saw what a disaster a divorce would be and there were a lot of good lessons about marriage along the way.

Now with this second book, many of the same characters are brought back. The investments go deeper and many loose strings are tied together. I wonder how much of this so far the author had in mind from the start.

Not only that, but with the return of the therapist figure of Evangelina Hamilton, there was also the return of a course for one of Mollie’s single friends with the goal being to find the one. I am quite certain if this course existed here and it was ran the same way, I would try to do whatever I could to sign up. Just now thinking about it, I consider it interesting the first step in the course was to get a new wardrobe, just after I went to the free Swap Shop here on campus with some friends to update my wardrobe and yes, for the same reason, to meet women.

Of course, there was material about how to behave on a date and two very opposite men doing the dating. How that turns out is going to be left for interesting readers to discover. There are a number of twists and turns one would not expect, but that make the story interesting.

The main theme though throughout is that Mollie thinks she might be pregnant and this while her husband is away on a business trip and she doesn’t want to take a pregnancy test to confirm or disprove until he returns. At the same time, she has a DIY project to do on her house and she gets the help of her brother-in-law who is trying to win the heart of her sister. How these work out is again something else I won’t spoil.

What is confusing about the main theme is that it doesn’t really read like the main theme. It’s there in the background and it looks like the main focus is on the dating course as Mollie helps one of the guys in it as his friend and sponsor. I found this story much more interesting than the baby story.

From a Christian perspective, there is a lot of good advice in here for relationships again, but Mollie does have a belief throughout about the way the universe is working things out. I often find this way of thinking so many people have odd, as if the universe, a non-personal entity, is intervening personally in the lives of people. One can say theism is nonsense if they want, but one can at least understand how a theist can see a personal deity intervening in the lives of people in the universe.

At any rate, I have started the third of five books now. I look forward to seeing what is in this one.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Thanks To Our Veterans

How do we honor those who have given so much? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Today is a day that we remember our Veterans. I fear in our country we are moving away from that. My boss at the post office at the seminary, which is not an official government post office, hence we are working today, and I realized just a while ago that I forgot that the mail won’t be coming in today. That saddens me that I lost track of that considering my boss and I are both very politically minded.

It’s one of the realities that it’s easy to take certain ideas for granted. We who are Americans live in a country where we can’t imagine anything being any different. Reality will always be the way it is. This country will always be here. I have no guarantee of that. One generation can change everything and more and more I get concerned that that generation has come.

But I don’t give up either. Chesterton said the last thing the pagan Roman Empire did was become Christian, and I keep hoping we could be on the verge of an awakening. Perhaps we have to hit a rock bottom. I don’t know the future, but it is a hope.

Either way, the reason we have lasted so long and any time we will last in the future is because of our veterans. If we did not have people willing to fight for this country, we could not have a country. Such people can be thankful they still can go home and be with their families, but they also have no guarantees of that when they go into battle. They can leave home and have no guarantee that they will be coming back.

I make it a point that whenever I see someone who was in the service out in the public,  I thank them for their service. The same applies to our policemen. There is utmost respect for those who are willing to take a bullet or any other form of death so I will be less likely to. It takes guts. Anyone who is entering this kind of field knows that they can lose it all.

So today, we say thank you.

Courage should be a virtue we as Americans celebrate. It was something that led to the founding of this country. Our founding fathers risked their lives so that we could live free. Signing the Declaration of Independence was essentially putting a target on them. They knew it. They did it.

We are the major beneficiaries of that action. We live in a nation of great freedom today, a freedom that must always be defended, a freedom that I fear is more and more in danger. If we take it for granted, we are only making it far more likely that we will lose it.

If you are one of our veterans reading this, thank you. If you see a veteran today, thank them. They are fine men and women who should get to enjoy a day dedicated to them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

(Also, I want to let anyone know that if you are interested, I have started a substack for political thoughts. There will naturally be some overlap on both sites, but the substack is a paid service and I wanted to go as cheap as I could on it which is $5 a month, but if someone becomes a Patreon at $2 a month and wants to be a subscriber, I will give a gift subscription.)

 

Book Plunge: Saturday Morning Mind Control

What do I think of Phil Phillips’s book published by Thomas Nelson? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have been doing some studying lately in the concept of Christian paranoia over how most every new invention that comes along is something that is going to destroy our children for the next generation. The problem is this happens so many times. It is my desire to find common themes and what can be done when new mediums come up. After all, we don’t want to just follow culture everywhere and jump on every bandwagon, but at the same time we want to be wise and discerning, including with entertainment content.

Phil Phillips writes from a perspective of a therapist in dealing with the issue of TV which he often calls The Box. Certainly, Phillips’s desire is noble and can be applauded. Watch what your children are watching and be aware of it. Try to understand what is going on. He doesn’t say to throw out TV altogether, but he does encourage a vested interest in what your children are doing.

This is something I wholeheartedly agree with. While my Dad and I watch TV together often, including shows like Smallville and the Flash, and we as a family watched Monk and House and other shows like that, but when it came to games, I have often been the lone gamer in my house. Parents. If you have children who are gamers, they would like to see you take an interest in that just as much as you take an interest in your children who play sports.

On p. 54, he does say one main reason that some kids don’t become aggressive in light of what is seen on TV is because of parents. This is the most important insight in the book. It deserves to be recognized by all. If you are raising your children well and teaching them good and evil and giving them a biblical worldview especially, they are far better equipped. I have played games all my life and I am not at all an aggressive person.

However, Phillips does indeed engage in paranoia and many of the rules seem arbitrary. For instance, does a show have more than three weapons on it? If this was followed, you could not watch The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

I also wondered throughout at times how you could explain the Bible in this position. The Bible has a lot of violence in it and yes, a lot of sexual content. We don’t grant the Bible an exception just because it’s the Bible. If we do that, we are engaging in double-standards.

Phillips does have a bibliography in the back, but the problem is many times in the book, he does not cite sources and does not tell where something is specifically found. Sometimes he will say something like “A boy said X.’ What boy is this? How can I speak to him?

He also sometimes gets his material wrong. For example, he says about Ninja Turtles and this when discussing the cartoon that Splinter was a rat and then became a humanoid rat, but fans of the show know that in the cartoon, Splinter was a human first. In the movie, he was a rat first. (82) He also says Smurfette was a male smurf who became female, but in reality, Smurfette had been created by Gargamel in the show. This is the danger of that if you get something basic wrong, why should I trust you on the others?

He is also vague on what is meant by aggression. It is never defined and sometimes it looks like it is always to be avoided. Sometimes aggression is a good thing. We need to be aggressive, but for Phillips, it looks like there is never a good time for aggression.

The same problem occurs with violence. Phillips is the kind of person who will have a problem with something like Looney Tunes and is convinced that too often children will believe everything on the box is real. Of course, this is where parents need to monitor and discuss, but eventually, children do grow up and realize these things aren’t real and just enjoy them as fantasy.

In looking at the Super Mario Brothers Super Show, which I know very well, he speaks about a three-headed snake that says “Stomp ’em, Tromp ’em, Crush ’em” and of characters being spoken of as belch brains and these are not the kinds of values we want our children to emulate. Good thing that it’s the VILLAINS who do this on the show. Would Phillips really want a show where villains show the behaviors we want to be emulated in society? (p.81)

He gets more bizarre about this show when he starts talking about occultism in cartoons and says that even Mario has a dance, which he connects dancing with the occult. You can do the Mario. You can think the Mario show is the dumbest show ever but you can look at the dance at the end easily and tell that Lou Albano is not leading children into occult practices with a dance.

He uses She-Ra as an example of how She-Ra even cries for an enemy because he was given life and wasted it. When he dies, no one would care. Honestly, this reads as if Phillips is condemning this when I find this admirable. We as Christians should all be sad for those who are given the gift of life and waste it. (120)

Phillips lists several shows he says have problematic and occult themes in them, many of which are just incredibly odd to see. My Favorite Martian should be avoided since it involves UFOs. G.I. Joe should be avoided because it’s too violent.  Other shows to be avoided for various reasons are The Munsters, Star Trek, Lost In Space, Dr. Who, Smurfs, Gummy Bears, My Little Pony, Scooby-Doo, and The Archie Comedy Hour. (125-127)

There is a little said on video games, and much of it convinces me that Phillips doesn’t understand video games well. Still, that is minor so I will save that for other works. The emphasis here is still on cartoons.

In conclusion, Phillips means well, but I think his approach will lead to only helicopter parenting instead of teaching children wise discernment skills so they can make decisions apart from their parents that will be for their true good. The goal of a parent is to work themselves out of a job. This doesn’t mean that they play no role in the lives of their children as I can still talk to my parents regularly and go to them for advice, but I certainly don’t need them to make decisions for me anymore, as it should be.

Christians. Avoid paranoia. The problem is not the medium. The problem is discernment.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America

What do I think of Jeff Ryan’s book published by Portfolio? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I like to listen to audio books while I’m out walking around and I am always interested in learning books about the gaming industry, something I’ve been a part of all my life. This one was a book about the invention of Super Mario and what he has done since then. The book goes through several chapters and many of them have a name that is a reference to a Mario game, though certainly not the focus of that chapter, a rather punny idea.

Mario is in many ways the unlikely hero in the book. Imagine you had a blank slate before you and you were sitting down to create a hero. What would you make? Someone like Batman, Superman, the Hulk, Iron Man, etc. is understandable. How many people went with pudgy little plumber in overalls that can jump on enemies’ heads and throw fireballs?

Yet that is what was created.

Of course, the first major game we think of with Mario was Donkey Kong. Mario had other games even before Super Mario Brothers and even Mario Brothers, but Donkey Kong had him there as the main protagonist largely going by Jumpman. Then a shock came in the sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., where it turned out that Mario was the villain.

From there, Mario went on to star in Super Mario Brothers and the world could not get enough of the plumber or his family. The story is the same for the most part, but the adventures keep changing. Bowser kidnaps the Princess. Mario goes and rescues her. Sometimes there have been variations of this, most notably Super Mario Brothers 2 which was a remake of Doki Doki Panic with Mario added in, and also even Super Mario RPG where Bowser and Mario joined forces to rescue the Princess and even after rescuing her, joined forces to defeat the villain Smithy.

For good or evil, Mario is stuck with Nintendo and Nintendo is stuck with him. Mario has far more games to his credit than anyone else and it’s easy for Nintendo to slip out a remade Mario game even years or decades later and still have it sell like hotcakes. Mario has arrived branded on everything and if there is any athlete who has the name Mario, what nickname does he get? Super Mario.

Ryan in this book takes us through all this history including the war with Sega and then after that, the battle against Sony and Xbox. It stops shortly after the Wii. I found this interesting saying the future would definitely have to include consoles with bodily motion involved and yet the next big one after the WiiU that Nintendo made was the Switch. This I consider a wise move since Nintendo has had great success in the portable market and the Switch combines both of them.

Mario is a hero for everyman. He doesn’t really excel at anything, aside from perhaps his ability to jump, but he is still the guy who is unlikely and yet going out every day to save the Princess and battle a lizard king who is often much bigger than he is. (Especially since so many games end now with a giant Bowser.) Mario has indeed conquered America.

If you are a fan of gaming, I recommend getting this one. If you want to know about the history of Mario, I also recommend this. I found this a quite enjoyable read and wanted to listen to it more and more. For we who are Christians, it reminds me we need to be in the gaming market as well and producing good games people, not just Christians, will want to play. We don’t need to create some fantastic superhero with an incredible story. An ordinary plumber can do.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth.)

 

Things To Remember On Election Day

What should we keep in mind today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So as we go out and vote in America today, here are some points I want to keep in mind.

First, we should be wary about the possibility of marrying our theology to our politics. Everyone wants their side to win, but it does not mean that if our side loses, then that means the end has come. Now it could be that God is bringing judgment by corrupt political leaders and so God’s will is still being done. However, the great danger we can think is that if our side doesn’t win, then it’s game over.

Let’s keep something in mind. Even if America were to fall someday, and most great nations do, the gospel will go on just fine. America needs the gospel, but the gospel doesn’t need America. The gospel will go on just fine. It could be surprising to consider, but some great locations where the gospel could be central could be a Middle Eastern nation or even China. In countries where the church is persecuted, it tends to rise up more and more and get stronger.

Second, do go and vote. You can go and play your part and you have that freedom in this country. Just consider how much it would have meant to early Christians under wicked Roman rulers if they could somehow vote out of office a particularly brutal Caesar and replace him with someone who would be kinder to their cause. Our freedom to vote is a great gift in America.

Third, whatever the outcome of today, Jesus is still on the throne. Perhaps you get the leaders you wanted. Okay. Consider it a blessing and then go and do the work of the gospel. Suppose instead the other side wins. That just means the challenge level has been upped and the church can prosper under persecution.

Fourth, this also means that whatever happens, your marching orders have stayed the same. Are you still called to go and spread the gospel in some way? Yes. Are you to love your neighbor as yourself still? Yes. Are you called to be a servant of Christ still? Yes.

One thing i try to avoid in any case is fearmongering. To get into my politics a little bit, when the Coronavirus came about, I made it a point to not buy into hysteria over it. I still see that as a wise choice. I try now to actively avoid places that still require wearing a mask.

Fear is something that a lot of us are addicted to. We have a steady diet of fear that is given to us and when people are afraid, they’re much more easily to fall to whatever is told them. This can often lead to some kind of disaster being created and then the party talking about that disaster is insistent that their solution is the only solution to it and if you don’t agree with that, then you don’t care about the cause.

Go out, vote, pray for he best, but remember Jesus is on the throne still and your marching orders are still the same.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Hard To Love

Who is it hard to love? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was at the New Orleans library Saturday to pick up some books for research purposes. While there, I saw a book by Joyce Meyer on display about loving people who are hard to love. That idea stuck with me a bit, You want to know who is hard to love?

You are.

Yes. You.

Look at yourself. Look at all your faults and failures. Look at all your annoying habits and quirks. Look at all the ways you can regularly mess things up and hurt those around you. You are hard to love.

“Not I! I am a great person! I am easy to love!”

If you think that, you are a prideful person and, well, hard to love then.

“Okay. So thanks for slamming me in your blog. You’re not any better!”

Absolutely right! As someone in the dating sphere now, I do think about that. Sure, I have friends who point out my positive traits but there’s a lot of negatives. I don’t know anyone who goes out there saying “I would really like to find a nerdy theological gaming apologist on the spectrum in his 40’s.” I could list a number of my faults and annoying quirks. I know I am a very hard person to love.

Yet here’s something else. I have said that because of so many negative traits others have, we have a hard time loving them. It would seem then that if we eliminated those traits, then people would be easy to love. Right?

Well how about Jesus?

Is He easy to love? If He was, we would all do a whole lot better at keeping His commandments. We don’t. We struggle and sin against Him every day. At those times, we love ourselves more than we love Jesus, and we ourselves are very hard to love.

Also, if Jesus was easy to love, everyone would have done so. However, Jesus got crucified. People who are loved by everyone do not get crucified. Jesus is the best person who ever walked this Earth, and He is hard to love.

Naturally, this goes to the Trinity entirely. Every person of the Trinity is hard to love. If they were easy to love, the history of Israel would be quite different. If God was easy for us to love, we wouldn’t have all the struggles of the flesh that we constantly have. However, we regularly fail in our love for God.

So let’s review here. We have said that people like ourselves are hard to love because of all our faults and failures. We have also said that God is hard to love, despite Him having no faults and failures. It seems that it is hard to love everyone. Yet what is the common reason that makes it hard to love people?

Us.

When we fail to love someone, it is not because of a deficiency in them, no matter how real that deficiency is. It is because of one in us. Can’t love your neighbor? Your neighbor might need to change and in reality, they definitely do, but it is not their fault if you find them hard to love. It is yours.

That’s also good news because that means it is yours to change. It is your power to repent and seek to change and learn to love. You learn to love others, yourself, and God.

Admitting the problem is the first step. It is you. It is me. We are the ones that we can change the most and we need to get started.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Spiritual Friendship

What do I think of Aelred of Rievalux’s book on friendship? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I know someone here who has also gone through divorce and he knowing my struggle with it let me borrow this book from him and recommended that I read it. I don’t remember entirely if Aelred ever mentions marriage in it or not specifically, but even if he does, it is not the focus. This is about friendship and is men discussing with themselves what friendship is. Aelred lived in the 12th century, one before my favorite of Aquinas, but his words still speak deeply to us today.

The book can easily be seen as a guide for relationships and what kind of relationships you can enter in to, what kind you should seek out, and how they end. It is also about how you are to be a friend to someone and ways to tell if someone is being a true friend to you. One such example of the latter is normally if you are friends with a poor person, it is genuine. I have friends who have money and some have told me to reach out to them if I am in a bind, but I am hesitant to do so. I love the gifts and generosity when they come, but I don’t want to risk being one of those people who is seeking that out.

Aelred argues that we should love everyone, but we should not seek to be friends with everyone and not everyone is suitable for a friendship. (p. 89) After all, a friend is someone you can trust and bare your heart to. You shouldn’t do that with everyone. This is one reason to not speak out everything on social media.

On the next page, he says that nothing is more detestable than one who harms a friendship and nothing tortures the spirit more than abandonment or attack by a friend. How true! If a random jerk I don’t know mistreats me, that hurts, but if someone is a friend and they do that, that really stings. It happens from time to time and I am sure I have done it sometimes to my friends. I do try to mend the relationships where I can.

He also calls us to a higher standard. If a friend doesn’t love you, love him still. If he withdraws his friendship, do not withdraw yours. (98) It is easy to love someone when they love you and be kind when they are kind to you. It is not so much when they do not love you and are unkind to you.

All of these come from the third book as this book is divided into three books. I found this one to be the most beneficial as did the person who let me borrow it as he has multiple lines underlined and many notes written on the side. Aelred writes with practicality as I don’t know a single person who doesn’t value friendship. It is strange that we value friendship so much, but really, there does not seem to be much being written on friendship from a scholarly perspective.

When I was allowed to borrow this, it was also with the hope that as I enter into other relationships here, dating and friendships, I would be mindful of who I would let into my world. We all should be. Perhaps we could refer to Aelred as the Boundaries writer of the 12th century.

Aside from the language that is used often, I recommend you get this book. Much of it could be read as if it was written today. I hope someday to get my own copy.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Can A Same-Sex Attracted Person Be In Ministry?

If you struggle with same-sex attraction, can you serve in ministry? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“Yes, Mom. If they have same-sex attraction, I believe 100% they can still be a pastor.”

I tend to reach out to my parents every night. Before I left for seminary, I got them an Echo Show. I use mine and call them and we can see one another and they can see Shiro and sometimes they show me their cat, Reagan. Neither of the cats really care for seeing one another and Shiro has never cared for seeing my parents and usually just keeps giving me kitty kisses while we’re talking.

Naturally, religious conversations come up and we were talking about the Methodist Church which they belong to. Their church is not budging on issues of sexual morality and does uphold the biblical view of marriage. However, my Mom was quite surprised to hear what I said.

“But isn’t that why our denomination is breaking away from the rest of it?”

No. It’s not. This is something that is a common misconception, but we definitely need to define our terms. For one thing, the more liberal churches are encouraging homosexual behavior and supporting that directly from the pulpit. If you have someone who is living a lifestyle and approving of it, then that is a problem.

I would say the same about a pastor who was involved in pornography or having a heterosexual affair or any other number of these types of sins. We need to treat it seriously. If a pastor struggles with porn, he should step down and get help and not return to the pulpit until he has his addiction under control and is no longer participating.

Keep in mind though, he could always in some ways be an addict to porn. That might not change, but what can change is what he has done with it. He is at the point where he knows that it is wrong and he is not participating and making excuses and likely has accountability software. (Actually, I think all pastors regardless should have that before taking a pulpit so their church can know.)

So what about someone with same-sex attraction? If they know that this is something wrong that the Bible condemns and they do not engage, then having the attraction and temptation is no sin. It is a problem for them to work on, but they are not doing anything wrong by having a temptation. They are still upholding biblical morality and Christian orthodoxy.

There are a number of Christians who do have this cross that they bear and I support. Sam Allberry, Christopher Yuan, and Wesley Hill come to mind. I would encourage Christians interested in this issue to also read Preston Sprinkle’s book People To Be Loved. Those who have this attraction and are living a celibate lifestyle should really be seen as examples exposing the myth that you have to be in a physically sexual relationship to be happy and the sufficiency of Jesus in all things.

So yes, I welcome them in ministry. They are my brothers and sisters.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge For Fun: Murder in the Convent

What do I think of Tanya Taylor’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Someone has murdered the Mother Superior. She’s found by one of the nuns in the convent and that nun before any investigation can be done pulls a knife out of her body. Two other nuns make a survey of the convent. Is anyone else there? Is there any sign of an open window or anything? Nothing.

Naturally, the police are called in who do an investigation of the nuns and interview them all, but there is one person that is known to the detective and apparently to everyone else who does his own investigation. This is Father Joe McCullen. A later event leads to him having a more personal interest in finding out who did the crime.

So who murdered this nun and why would they want to? How was it done? All of these questions are discussed and Father Joe with his position in the community uses his knowledge to get to the bottom of the situation.

At the same time though, he is always a priest. When people are coming to him with concerns they have in the aftermath of what happened, he is right there. When someone needs to go and comfort the nuns and help them work through whatever they are going through with this, he is there again. However, he is not only a priest, but he is a very wise priest. This is a man who lives out his Christian walk and references to that walk are constantly found throughout the book.

At the same time, a Protestant reader can happily enjoy this book. Aside from nuns, I can’t think of anything right off in the book that is really distinctly Catholic. At the same time, I would not have wanted to give up on the book in disgrace if such had been there, but a Protestant reader can find themselves right at home reading this material.

The book is also short as there are just fifteen chapters and I did cheat with one chapter being a couple of pages so I read that in addition to my normal one chapter a day. Because of that, I finished the mystery in two weeks and I did find that I enjoyed it.

I will grant that this is the first one in the series that I have read and so I did find it rather simple to figure out who did the crime and why as the story went on, but seeing how it all worked out was also interesting. The main theme of the book is not to be found in the crime. It’s to be found in the values that the people in the book live by. It is to be found in how a Christian community struggles when one of the worst sins is found in their midst.

If you like a mystery like I do and want to read something that is also family friendly and wholesome, this is a good one. I do know there are other books in the series and I plan to get them as they go on sale, or unless someone feels generous. If you want to get it, you can find it here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Hooked On A Feeling

What do we really want in our lives? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of my struggles I can often have is anxiety. There is always a state of fear at times hanging in the back of one’s mind and mine is so overwhelming that I am actively on anxiety medication for it. When it really hits home, all you want is to feel peace. Unfortunately, it can often be the case that the more you resist anxiety and try to pursue peace, the worse it gets.

Many times, we have people saying they want to feel the love of God and the peace of God. That is understandable, but are we really wanting the love of God or the peace of God then, or do we want the feelings of them? Keep in mind, feeling the love of God doesn’t mean that you are in the good graces of God. I do hold that God loves everyone, but that doesn’t mean that all are in the place to truly enjoy His love.

This is not to say one’s emotional state doesn’t matter, but we often treat it like it is primary. The goal in life is to feel peace instead of being a person of peace. I can often do something to do with my anxiety, but am I getting better at learning how to do proper thinking to avoid the anxiety? Should it even be the goal to avoid anxiety always? There are times anxiety is a good thing to have.

The same applies to states of depression and sadness. There are times that you ought to be depressed and sad. If you hear some really bad news, there is nothing wrong with feeling sad. You should. If you are a Christian and you know that you have sinned, you ought also to feel sad. If you are repenting of something, that should put you in a place of contrition.

What needs to be done more often is emotions in correspondence to reality. The emotion isn’t the goal. Living the way that we ought to isn’t the goal and when we reach that, we can have the emotion perhaps. If it’s a good emotion and it comes, we can enjoy it. If it’s a painful emotion, we can learn to work through it.

If we focus on getting rid of a feeling, then we could be going through the wrong focus. If we get instead hooked on a good feeling, we can keep going from item to item in our lives, rather it be a person or an object or anything else. This is why relationships that are romantic can often fail. If we make the emotions the goal, then when the emotion fails, we can think the relationship has failed.

All of this is still something I am working on. I am on medication for anxiety now and I do hope that someday I will be able to get off of it and process anxiety normally, and if you are on medication for something, I don’t have a problem with it, though I encourage you to get therapy at the same time, which I am doing.

Make sure you have the right focus. The focus is living properly in reality and being a good person. It is not on having or not having a feeling.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)