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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....
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The Challenge in English Class

(Last Sunday, a speaker reminded me that God is Truth. A year ago, he shared the same message. I’m re-posting some of my revised thoughts from that time.)

The pressure builds somewhere in my chest and pushes a lump into my throat. My professor points at the sentence on the white board and claims that it revolutionized man's thinking from belief in a Creator as the source of all knowledge to belief in man as the source of all knowledge. I stare at the board, lines blurring, and swallow hard. Descarte's statement glares at me: "I think, therefore I am." Her square glasses outline her eyes as she makes eye contact with each student around the room. She tells us in clear, sophisticated words that this declaration defies the Christian idea that is stated in Genesis 1: "In the Beginning was the Word..." She points her finger at the class and challenges any desire we may have to ignorantly choose to hold onto traditional beliefs and claim Descarte's statement as untrue.

I look around the classroom, trying to catch anyone who is shifting uncomfortably in their seat, but they all calmly watch the professor, some with their cheeks resting in their palms and eyes drooping. The professor explains that man is the subject of language, the beginning of knowledge, and the absolute truth. Then she goes onto describe how Descarte’s statement can be complicated in that Man does not know what he is thinking and all that he is thinking all the time. She scratches another statement on the board: "I think, therefore I am not where I think I am." She continues to talk, but I'm lost in thought.

So, the subject of language and of life is 'I', is man. That's the problem with this world. We stake our morals, our worldview on a dis-unified statement. By my professor's own assertion, Descarte's statement breaks down into dis-unity. Anything that is not unified cannot be true. The binary opposite of truth is a lie. A lie is something that is crooked, something that is inconsistent, and something that changes. The subject 'I' of Descarte's statement changes based on every person that is signified by that pronoun. Every person has varying morals, different ideas of right and wrong. If we base our lives upon the inconsistency of man's ideas, our world will fall apart. We DO base our modern world on the reason of man and it IS falling apart. So, where do we get truth?

I remember what he said to us a few weeks ago, over lunch, a bunch of students eagerly leaning forward in our seats, wanting to understand the Bible better. He told us: "Define truth without God." Silence. The only plausible explanation for an absolute truth is based on something or Someone that is unchanging and is perfect. God is the only Being that I have ever known to fit those criteria.

I don’t have a PhD. I am just an undergraduate student with average grades. I stand confidently on this: I know Whom I have believed.

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