{"id":2323,"date":"2015-03-26T12:34:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T17:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/moniqueocampowrites\/?p=2323"},"modified":"2015-03-26T12:34:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T17:34:38","slug":"faith-and-trust-vs-doubt-and-discouragement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/moniqueocampowrites\/2015\/03\/26\/faith-and-trust-vs-doubt-and-discouragement\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith and Trust vs Doubt and Discouragement"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>One of my favorite quotes from CS Lewis is \u201cThere are far, far better things ahead than anything we leave behind.\u201d I keep going back to that quote whenever I face a setback.<\/p>\n<p>I know you guys are probably gonna laugh at the idea of a twentysomething having a quarter-life crisis, but the fact is that it happens. I apply for jobs and don\u2019t hear back or I get the interview, but not the job itself. I fall for guys who never give me a chance. I have a million writing ideas but get writer\u2019s block as soon as I see the blank page of a word processor.<\/p>\n<p>I know that God has a better plan for me. It would be nice to know what that plan was, though. I mean, what could be better than having a full-time job, having a car, driving where I want to go, and having a normal relationship? I\u2019m not exactly sure if it\u2019s in God\u2019s plan that I stay at home blogging and only talk to people through the internet.<\/p>\n<p>There are times that God led me to wonderful things that ended up changing my life for the better. The real test is living out that faith and trusting God on a day to day basis. To quote my favorite show \u201cThe hardest thing in this world is to live in it.\u201d Believe me when I say that it\u2019s sadly true. It\u2019s\u00a0<em>hard<\/em>\u00a0to live life on a daily basis not knowing what\u2019s gonna happen next, not knowing where life is going to lead you, and faced with a world that is seemingly indifferent. And it\u2019s easy to think that this world is indifferent and to try and create our own meaning or to go the other direction and wallow in angst for the rest of our lives.<\/p>\n<p>But by the grace of God, I am\u00a0<em>not<\/em> a nihilist. I think that there is a bigger meaning to life. But I\u2019m not anti-nihilist, either. \u00a0The universe is\u00a0<em>not<\/em> indifferent to us because God created the universe and he created us. I think that while God has a plan, he always incorporates free will. But there\u00a0<em>are<\/em> moral absolutes. I studied\u00a0<em>way<\/em> too much Aquinas in my college days and one frustrating thing about reading his works is that I ended up asking more questions. (Which was the point of the Summas, apparently.)<\/p>\n<p>So I don\u2019t have a label for my philosophy, not yet anyway. I\u2019ll always be asking questions and find answers that make me want to know more. And while I don\u2019t like the core value of existentialism, I can say that I can make the most of the time I have now and push forward towards making it better.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my favorite quotes from CS Lewis is \u201cThere are far, far better things ahead than anything we leave behind.\u201d I keep going back to that quote whenever I face a setback. I know you guys are probably gonna laugh at the idea of a twentysomething having a quarter-life crisis, but the fact is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2156,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10,12],"tags":[628,625,120,629,129,217,627,626,624],"class_list":["post-2323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-2","category-personal-life","category-reflections","tag-anti-nihilism","tag-discouragement","tag-doubt","tag-existentialism","tag-faith","tag-life","tag-nihilism","tag-philosophy","tag-trust"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Faith and Trust vs Doubt and Discouragement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of my favorite quotes from CS Lewis is &quot;There are far, far better things ahead than anything we leave behind.&quot; 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