Here's the Thing...

The thing is,  I'll turn fifty-two next month, so I've been having to deal with the sudden realization that my life is almost half over.  It's caused me to wonder things like:

• Am I being realistic about the things I want to accomplish in my lifetime?
• By virtue of my existence, is anything of permanence being built?
• Do I still have a chance to make a lasting mark in the annals of human history?
• Has anybody really been affected in any way by my feeble - albeit, profound - writings?

...Heady stuff, I know, but, hey, somebody's got to try to shape this shapeless body of human amorphism we call society.  I've always felt I was a good candidate, since I seem to waste an inordinate amount of time and energy thinking about it.  And besides, I've always held the conviction that if everyone would just act in accordance to my liking, the world would, in fact, be a better place.

I'm reminded of a lyric I heard in a song by comedian Martin Mull - or maybe it was Chevy Chase... a long time ago: "I don't want much.  I just wanna be God."  At the time I thought it was pretty irreverent, but I've come to appreciate its honesty - plus, there is a bit of humor in it, after all.  Think about it: it's a completely preposterous statement, yet it's one we all make all the time, in all sorts of ways.  "I don't want a million dollars (though I wouldn't burn it if you gave it to me), I just want 80,000 dollars a year, a nice car in the garage, a decent home in a decent neighborhood, a good career, a reasonably secure position at work, and pretty much complete control over my life's circumstances"...  Am I the only one who sees the similarity of the two statements?  

"I don't want much.  I just wanna be God."  The joke's on us, really, because we laugh at this as though the one saying it is an idiot, but we're not smart enough to see that we're laughing at our own reflection.  And then the joke's really on us when we point at him, see him pointing back, and laugh even harder because he's too stupid to know (as we do) that he's the one who's being laughed at.  We think we're so smart.  We think we're God.

Well, after coming to the solid realization that I really do want to be God, despite my conscious efforts to repent of such desires, I've made a determination as to what I'm going to do about this.  I thought that it would be a good idea to find out just who God is.  I mean, if I really want to be Him, even though I know I can't actually be Him (let's all be honest here), then perhaps I can be like Him.  So I figure the only way to achieve that is to actually meet Him, maybe hang around Him a lot, so I can get to know Him.  Then I'll be able to be like Him.  Something just tells me that my life will go better then.

Since I began that pursuit, I've learned a lot.  I've learned quite a bit about who God is, and what He's like.  And I've met a lot of other people who somehow came to the same conclusions as myself on the matter.  I've read some books by authors who made it their life's pursuit to get to know God better.  It's amazing, really, how many other people have decided to try to get to know God, and it's interesting that most of them have apparently met the same God, because they all describe the same person.  There are, of course, those who found someone else who impersonates God, but those have been pretty easy to sort out, because they all fail the test of consistency.  I figure that, by definition, God is not a liar, so if someone promoting his version of God fails to present a consistently truthful god, then there's probably something wrong there.

So anyway, here's the thing:

If I'm going to accomplish anything of lasting value in my life; if I'm going to have any kind of lasting impact in the lives of others; if I'm going to make any kind of mark on the annals of human history; it will be because I happened to be there, involved in what God was doing, at the moment God did something.  God (being eternal, among other attributes) is the one who does eternal (like, lasting) stuff.  And to that end, my personal blog is hereby dedicated to the furtherance of God's purpose, the exposition of His Word, the uplifting of the hearts and souls of men and women, and the glorification of God's son, Jesus Christ.

Pretty much, that's the thing.
Thanks for reading.

-Eric