Wow. Just...wow.

I borrowed "wow. Just...wow" from my friend Carissa's encyclopedic jargon. That was not meant to be a brazen strike of sarcasm. She is so smart and her vocabulary is so diverse that she, of all people, can get away with saying things like that. I admire her a lot. I like hanging out with her not just because she speaks well, and not just because she is an amazing godly woman, but methinks that my IQ is actually raised a few points just from being in her presence. (If she's reading this, this is the part where she slams her hands down on the table and shakes her head in disapproval. I can see it now. And I am laughing out loud.)

Ok, enough about Carissa.

This past weekend, I was at the Resolved Conference in Palm Springs. If you have not heard of this conference, it is most definitely one to take note of and perhaps make an effort to attend someday. The conference was the brainchild of one, Rick Holland, college pastor at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California (which is incidentally the church that is pastored by John MacArthur.) The conference was inspired by and dedicated to the greatest thinker/theologian/philosopher in American history, Jonathan Edwards. At the young age of 19, Edwards wrote 70 resolutions (hence the name "Resolved") to commit himself to living life fully and wholly for the glory of God, through Jesus Christ; a commitment he took very seriously until he died of complications from a smallpox inoculation on March 22, 1758. As Rick Holland sees it, if Jonathan Edwards can take his faith so seriously at 19, then so can this generation of young adults. Thus, the conference is three-days of solid, intense and God-glorifying, God-centered expository sermons delivered by some of the most passionate and intellectual bible scholars that I have ever heard (John MacArthur, C.J Mahaney, Steve Lawson, John Piper, etc). Strategically placed in between each sermons are songs of worship focused on the greatness of God and the glory of the Cross. It was truly awesome, and I say that within the most appropriate context of the word.

If I could sum up my experience this weekend in one word, the word I would pick is: Heaven. And not just because this particular conference was about Heaven and Hell, but because it was, to me, a glimpse of what Heaven will be like: The multitude of thousands upon thousands of Christians, standing around the throne of the most High God and giving Him glory and praise for eternity! All we did was talk about God! It was amazing!

Oh, there is so much more I can say about what I experienced, but this blog post would take days to read! What I do want to do is to hone in on what my response should be to something like this. Christianity is not lived out successfully unless it is lived out with a severity like that of a servant who, in loving obligation and commitment, is willing to die for his master. That severity is often lost in our culture because living life here is relatively easy. In other words, Christians fall into the trap Satan has set to take our time here on earth, for granted. "Take it easy," he whispers fiendishly into our ears. And we do. I admit I fall into that trap more often than I would like. I fail to understand that I am living on borrowed time. That if I took the time to fully understand what is waiting for me in Heaven, that this earth is truly not my home, then my life would look drastically different and in the most extreme sense of the matter.

Since thinking about what the rest of my life will look like is overwhelming, I am focusing my concerns on what my summer should look like. To narrow it down even further, what should my week look like. And to be even more particular, what should my days look like, in light of living my life for eternity? Aside from disciplining myself to study and read the Bible everyday, I have no idea. Or maybe I do, but the thought of what it will look like scares me. I am very much guilty of being a lover of comfort. Not only am I selfish but I am also self-indulgent to the highest degree. I do not like doing things that inconvenience me in any way. This is obviously, something that God will purge from me, since self-indulgence is the greatest hindrance from loving and serving Him, whole-heartedly.

I will end this rather long post with a few of Jonathan Edward's resolutions:

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

23. Resolved, frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done, for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs and ends of it; and if I find it not to be for God' s glory, to repute it

61. Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it-that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, etc. May 21, and July 13, 1723.