"Why are you doing this?"
"I'm doing this because I fell in love. With the characters, the story. It gave me a world outside myself; a desire for something bigger than me...just, something outside myself. It's like no matter how many deep breaths you take, you are never fully satisfied, you never have enough air. There is a hunger, a desire in your heart that cannot be quenched. You find this feeling with a lot of the grand epics. Why do we all fall in love with Tolkein, Narnia, Gladiator? It's this feeling that you get. That same longing comes with reading the Bible."
"But what has Christianity done for you?"
"Look where it's gotten me. Your raised eyebrows indicate a certain doubt. Listen to this. You know, some may go through life living on the streets. With abuse, poverty, strife, loneliness...a horrid life. Then they find God. Or rather, God finds them. And yet they may still be living on the streets, with hunger, abuse, poverty, strife...no loneliness...but you ask them the same question, and they'll answer the same way: 'Look where it's gotten me.' Because we're looking into the face of eternity, no longer living for this world.
"We've found something bigger than ourselves. We're satisfied even before we take a breath. It's fulfilling. It quenches those longings, desires, aches of our heart. It makes us richer than any other on earth."
"So you find a crutch to get through life."
"You know, that's the secret. We have nothing to offer him. We cannot give him anything. We're weak, helpless, lost, alone, hungry, thirsty, blind, dead. No, instead he offers us strength. And even though we have nothing to offer him, he loves us anyway."
"Yet he lets some of you live a horrid life?"
"It's not that we are given grand lives once we enter a relationship with him. And we don't 'settle' either, rather we live with peace, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Our circumstances cease to matter as they used to, because we live knowing God goes beyond our situation."
"Some love."
"There's a verse that says 'no greater love has a man than this: to lay down his life for his friends.' But see, it's even better than that. Jesus gave us his life while we were still sinners. While we were still enemies..."
"Huh."
"And Jesus...well, he's not a crutch." Smile. "He's our life support."
--MovingGirl
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