bitter

proceeding from or exhibiting great hostility or animosity.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this here before but this summer I've been slowly trying to work through my issues that have developed over my feelings and attitudes towards social justice and the concept of "development." I don't even know how to really explain it, but while I was doing my degree I just got really frustrated, bitter and cynical about it all. It's hard to believe that I'm the same hopeful person that went into the program. Well, I guess I'm not really the same person. 

It's not that I don't have hope, either. I have lots of hope. Jesus brings so much hope. However, I have to admit that I do have this desperate belief that there is absolutely no hope except for Him. I never used to think this way, and even though I'm sure it's probably the right perspective, it's still kind of depressing to have lost all hope in a humanity that rejects Christ. I know non-Christians do good things and are "good people". But ultimately, when you come face to face with the darkness of the human heart, you too would come to the same conclusion that I have. 

But here's my problem: I've kind of pushed away all these solutions to effect change -- I've pushed away everything but evangelism, discipleship and the local church. I know that there's something wrong with my attitude about it because I don't know what my opinion is on a lot of the issues. I know there's something wrong because I've pushed it away and opted to not deal with it. I know there's something wrong because because I really can't put my finger on what exactly the Bible has to say about all of these things. 

I know God loves social justice and it's close to His heart. That is very clear to me. It's the whole reason why I got into development in the first place. I've grown up around redemption and rehabilitation and second chances and hope. But there's something about the trendiness of social justice right now -- the connection between the emergent church and replacing the gospel with "jesus came only as an example and this is the good news" that really really gets my guard up. 

The reason I'm bringing this all up is because my calling to C4C staff is directly related to these issues and my confusion over everything is evident (at least to me) every time I do my presentation with someone. It's evident in how I explain myself; I have a hard time because I don't really know my own opinions on it. I don't really know my own place in it all. Why did I take this degree and am now in C4C? 

On my drive back home from Toronto I listened to a couple sermons by Tim Keller that also reminded me of this. One was on Justice. It was good. I agreed. It made me excited, even. 

Hmm, I'm sure this post is pretty confusing too. I haven't really explained myself because I'm still working through it all. I don't know if this is all because of my anti-conformist tendencies or simply because I was exposed to a pretty disturbing combination of desperation and cynicism in my program. 

Like I said before, I have been actively working through this. But after this last appointment, I think I'm going to take it more seriously because my uncertainty has been haunting me, taunting me.