The Apologetic of Now - Jill Carattini

Several seats ahead of me, a conversation about The Da Vinci Code was drawing otherwise subdued travelers out of their newspapers. "It really makes you look at the church differently," a voice said, triggering a quick "yes" out of the one beside her. Meanwhile, the passenger on my left, inspired by the conversation in front of us, was describing truth as coming in flavors like ice cream. "And I've never been able to develop a taste for Christianity," he told me. Sitting alone in my car after a long plane ride, I echoed the tired query of the psalmist, "Are the foundations destroyed?" My inquiry of God was equally dispirited: "What can I possibly do about it?"

The need for a coherent and compelling apologetic is reiterated daily. From time to time, it is a need I meet with despair. How do you present the gospel when words are constantly being redefined and the lines between fiction and reality are spoken of interchangeably? Those of us who long to bring the balm of Christ to a world in pain can find ourselves retreating for countless reasons: rejection, disappointment, fear, inability. Yet it is often when my skill in presenting the gospel seems most inadequate and I voice my weariness in prayer that God corrects once again my grave shift in thought.

It is not up to me to uphold the pillars and pieces of Christianity to make it a true and valid thing to believe in. It is not my skill in communicating or my winsome personality, but the gospel itself that speaks with power, and this power that speaks in my life: "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus's sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5). It is a mindset imperative not only in understanding the Christian story, but the very nature of truth itself. That which is real, that which exists and has meaning, exists whether we choose to stand beside it or not. Even in the throes of postmodernity, Jesus is Lord and the gospel is powerful. This I forget when focusing on me.

C.S. Lewis once asked, "Where, except in the present, can the eternal be met?" In my dismay over the immeasurable need for truth and coherence, in my frustration for lack of words, and despair for not seeming to get through, I fail to live entirely in the present. Whether wishing I had paid more attention in philosophy or hoping to find one more book on witnessing effectively, I am failing to remember that within the gospel I long to bring even on an airplane is the person of Christ present and relevant now.

Jesus calls us to an effective awareness of the present, to witness to the world with every moment he has given us. Where Christ says, "Follow me," where he pleads, "Come to me," there is both urgency and immediacy in his voice. God is always nearest to us "now" and it has profound implications for the message we long to share.

The Scriptures speak little of our ability to prove the existence of God, or convince the skeptic of his illogic. What we are often reminded of is the power of the gospel spoken in our behavior towards one another and in our devotion to Christ. Both require an awareness of God in the present moment before us. "As I have loved you," said Jesus, "so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). The promises of the one who came in the fullness of time are boldly written upon this very moment. What are you communicating to your neighbor right now?

The psalmist once asked, "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3). Perhaps it was uttered with the same defeat we face from time to time. Yet the psalmist chose to place his dispirited inquiry beside a truth larger than his despair and more real than his inability. In the verse immediately following, the psalmist remembered the fullness of God even in that moment of seeming defeat: "The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD is on his heavenly throne" (Psalm 11:4). In our daily attempts to provide an answer for the hope that is within us, might this vision seal our hearts. The LORD is near us even now.

© 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. All Rights Reserved.

What is Up?

Some days I'm just lost for words and lost altogether. I get this roller coaster ride through life and vocational ministry - mostly ministry. I know Satan is attacking me and making me go on this ride... the lows that I feel.... the doubts that I have. I just actually read and commented on a guys blog that I know about this exact thing... "why do people drop out of ministry"... or at least what components contribute to that happening. In my case, I'm trying to figure out if vocational ministry will be the rest of my life or not. And right now I lean towards a big NO. Maybe I just need some guidance or something... direction... to find my actual giftings......
There seems to me that I missed the boat somewhere along the way... the boat of excitement and passion for what we do. Not lack of passion for truth and God, but lack of passion for doing what we do as Youth ministers. I realize that this is revealing of me to say in a public venue like this, but what's the use of hiding it really?
Anyway... God knows the plans He has for me and sometimes I even have a hard time holding on to that.

Any thoughts?

Seeing is...Believing?

Society's flip-flopped worldview. Why should we have to see things to believe them? Would not the more crucial, eternal properties and principles of our existence be unseen?

Take for instance the laws that govern this great existence. Are those not unseen forces, very crucial to our survival, and apparently eternal? Would those well-documented and readily observable traits of our existence not contradict the haphazard chaos that is presumed upon the origins of our existence? Would this not speak of our society's Great Contradiction? That we can, at the same time, hold in such high regard as men such as Newton and Darwin. Are they not contradictions? That one would claim such order in nature and the other claim such chance.

Do not the great discoveries of such men as Aristotle, Galileo and Newton stand in contradiction to the theories of other "great" men we as a society have adopted, such as Darwin?

Please tell me.

My Wireless Brain

I would have liked to say, "My Portable Brain" but then I realized that my physical brain is portable! Duh!? It goes wherever I go...then again,...? hehe

Anyway, I thought of my pda, I depend on, as my brain, for it keeps all of my little notes organized. Could I live without it? Sure, but this makes everything neat and compact.

My physical brain is always wired to the rest of my body.

Recently Thought

Beliefs are stale, inorganic and institutional. We adhere too strongly to our beliefs and miss out on trust.

The idea of evolution gives great hope to the human race. It is no wonder that we are drawn to it. It fills our hearts with pride and our heads with power.

I hate the asterik. It represents everything insidious. It voids the value and betrays the promise of what it represents.

Weary of Insanity

I tire of the human race. How much folly can we endure? We have sustained so much heartache by the fruit of our hands. I just want to get off this merry-go-round. There's no 'merry' and I'm dizzy. This rat race ends in death. We are at the mercy of our own design. We have created the maze, lined ourselves up, and pursued the utopian arsenic-saturated piece of cheese found at the end of this pre-determined destiny. Why don't we just jump over the three inch wall? Why don't we pursue true freedom? Obviously because of the lure for which we chase after.

Quote of the Day

Jesus Christ did not come into the world to make bad people good, but He came into the world to make dead people live!

~Ravi Zacharias

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.


The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.

~GK chesterton

Who killed Jennifer Teague??!

Isn't it sad that the police haven't found this girl's killer yet? She was killed back in September '05 right here in our fair City. They found her body on a trail that people like to run and walk on during the summer months. The police alegedly have 500 leads to who her killer may be and they still have nothing. Police? What police?!

If anyone knows of the whereabouts of Jennifer teague's killer, please, do us all a favour and tell the police. Get this scum off the streets before he does something like this to another innocent young girl.

The hunt for a missing teen has now turned into a hunt for a killer. If you have information that might help the case, please call police. The number to call for major crime is 236-1222, ext. 5477. Or you can e-mail tips to infojennifer@ottawa.police.ca