A friend just recently wrote the following about the Christian way...I found it impassioned and strong...in a good way:
And furthermore, for the umpteenth time, Christianity is not some fluffy relationship with God. I have a relationship with lots of people--including you, Stacey, Reid, my parents, my brother, and a million other people. These are entirely different kinds of relationships. I afford these people different courtesies and that is as it should be. What makes Christianity special is that it is a specific type of relationship--that of lordship. "If you confess with your mouth that JESUS IS LORD." Thus Christianity is not some buddy-buddy, only-if-we-cuddle-afterwards relationship, it the narrow gate. It is the road to Golgotha. It is the pearl of great price. God did not die on the cross to slant our worldview a bit, he died and claimed the right to rule our lives, and we will have him entirely, or we've missed him--just like the Pharisees, just like Felix, just like Herod, just like Nero, and I might add, just like Hitler, who once said that Christianity, "the basis of our full morality," would be under his "firm protection."
I saw a news story that is a great metaphor for the Christian life. Not too long ago, a van carrying college students turned over. On the van there were two girls, both blonde, about the same size and weight. One of them was declared dead, and the other went into a long coma. The other day (about two weeks after the accident), the comatose one started coming around. Her family went to see her, only to realize that it was not their daughter. Their daughter was dead, and another family's daughter, for whom they had already had a funeral, was alive. This is the illusion we all live under. In all appearances, the world is alive and kicking, and Christ appears to many is inactive and dead. But one day the truth will be revealed that Christ is the victor and this current age and is dead on the table and will be both judged and redeemed by the blood of Jesus that covers all sin. You can live in defiance of God, believing this world and this age to be reality, but it's simply not the case.
Paul said it this way…Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Cor 4:17, 18
You are walking well, young padawan 