So far Lent has not been great.  Obviously, because I wanted to give up the internets and yet here I am writing a blog.  But tonight I couldn't resist.  My roommates, one of whom is drunk for the millionth time, woke me up about two and a half hours ago and I haven't been able to get back to sleep.  When I'm frustrated I feel the urge to blog.  Apart from the agonizing frustration of being woken up yet again by them, here's what I've been thinking about.

While in general I'm less depressed, I'm far from God and I know it.  It's like I'm some ravished child in a highchair, bound by four walls, perhaps surrounded by delicious food but completely unable to grab anything because I'm physically limited.  And maybe just too tired to reach anymore, exhausted from trying to reach the unattainable.  

The worst part of this is that I know it, I realize that I'm not close to God and yet I feel no different.  I have no desire to see God glorified, no passion to share His love coursing through my veins.  I'm not 'on fire' for God nor do I desire the Christian life apart from feeling like I must live it out.  Spiritually I feel bland.  

However, on other fronts I feel absolutely grand.  Sadly somehow my spiritual life got separated from the rest of me, but I'm doing wonderfully on a personal note.  I'm growing into my own and I have more resonance and confidence in who I am than I've ever been.  I'm not as hung up on things like my surroundings, relationships, circumstances, past or future.  My work ethic is flourishing.  I am grabbing onto friendships and relishing in them truly for the first time since my amazing summer in Daytona Beach and even then it's at a completely different, wonderful level.  A lot of things in my life are 'going right' in ways I've never experienced.  I don't wake up dreading continuing the day or wishing I could sleep all day long.  I don't dread encountering people.    I'm not obsessing over as much and I'm less uptight about my life.  I can get through an entire school day without having and dwelling on a single depressing thought.  Mornings are now my favorite part of the day.  Cool.

All that said, I have to admit that while I was at my lowest and hating life and myself, I was in a deeper, more intimate fellowship with the Lord.  I found myself depending on Him more.  As unhappy as I was, a part of me - perhaps a part deep down I couldn't see - clung to Christ knowing that He is the only steadfast and trustworthy Person in the universe.  I didn't realize just how closely I was drawn to Jesus through that dark period until now - happier but with a soul left unsatisfied.

Reading my Bible tonight before bedtime didn't help.  I was in the spirit of Lent and had just switched off my TV, realizing that I hadn't spent time with God today.  I didn't feel particularly led anywhere so I just plopped open my English Standard Version to 1 Samuel 15.  Read it.  As I drank in verse after verse, my hatred and frustration towards God developed at an alarming rate.  Here is God ordering Saul to go into a town called Amalek and completely slaughter everyone living there, man and woman, child and beast.  For no other reasons than to punish them for opposing Israel on the way out of Egypt and to test Saul's ability to follow orders from God as Israel's appointed king.  You don't just kill an entire city.  Hello? Thou shall not kill?  It seems like this commandment is pushed aside the most throughout the Bible.  People slaughtered left and right because God commanded it.  In fact at the end of this chapter Samuel shames Saul for not murdering everyone like God wanted and after Saul is dethroned, Samuel confronts the King of Amalek who Saul spared:

And Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past."  And Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women."  And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord.

I can't understand or embrace a God who would simply order the murder of thousands of people, even some innocent children who aren't even old enough to actively rebel against Him.  To me this entire passage goes against all I've been taught about God's character.  I hate God for causing all these people to be killed only to go to hell because He never gave them a chance to be redeemed.  

This kind of thing happens throughout the Old Testament, yet we never hear from it at church or from our spiritual leaders.  If we believe the entire Bible is the true Word of God, and all parts are equally good and glorifying to God, why neglect all these terror stories from Samuel? More so how do we see that God is good through this chapter in Samuel?  

There's so much to Bill Maher's argument against religion that I want to agree with, that I want to stand up and embrace and slam my fist down triumphantly because nothing would feel more right.