I blog for all the wrong reasons.
When I first started this blog, I was moving from a generic evangelical, uninformed, fiercely individualistic, barely post-youthgroup understanding of Christ to an understanding that was more scholarly, more communal, and decidedly reformed. I was reading and having good discussions, and wanted to share my new-found Calvinist intellectualism with the blogosphere. (I could almost certainly have been lumped in with what Mark Driscoll often mocks as “20-year-old Calvinists with blogs and nothing better to do”, except I was 25 and possibly should have known better.)
Since then, I’ve written about a few things . . . from my family’s search for a new church after moving last year, to the Southern Baptists’ freak-out over a coffee cup, to my disgust with liberal “Christianity”, and varioius other things. Recently, though, I’ve been asking myself two big questions about my blog . . .
1) Why am I doing this?
2) Have I said/am I saying anything worthwhile?
I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to number 1 is ultimately “pride”, which is sin. I wanted to be the next “rock star” in the reformed blogosphere . . . in league with such folks as Tim Challies, Steve McCoy, or my friend Mark Traphagen. For a brief moment about a year ago, it looked as if my falsely humble blog might be on its way there. Comments were moderately high . . . I was being linked and hat-tipped by the likes of Phil Johnson and Wayne Leman . . . things looked good. It wasn’t long before all that came to a stumbling halt, and I was exposed (even if only in my own mind and heart) as the self-serving ingrate that I am. Readership was down. Comments were down. Thoughts on what to post were almost non-existent. Reading blogs from my friends and acquaintences shows me that I’m still just as uninformed and immature as I was in my pre-Reformed days. Christ seems to be less of a person to be treasured and more of a set of propositions to be cognitively apprehended. My passion is gone.
My pride, however, is amazingly resilient.
(By the way, the answer to number 2 is “maybe at one time, but definitely not anymore”.)
There’s a lot of sanctifying work that needs to be done in my life. There’s a good amount of maturity that needs to take hold. I need to learn how to love my wife as Christ loves the church, how to be a worthy father to my daughter, and how to lead my family as the Lord commands me to. There is much sin that needs to be killed daily.
If and when I manage to get over myself, and then find something that might be worth reading, I’ll write here again. Could be sooner, could be later. If you happen come around to this post, pray for me. There is much work to be done.
(Feel free to come around to my LiveJournal in the meantime. I don’t really post there too often anymore either, but it’s the place to get updates on my personal life and such. And don’t forget my Flickr.)
