Engaging God's World Chapter 1

Chapter one of Plantinga's book talks about longing and hope. These two things are topics that I would have never related to one another. However, just like bread goes with butter, longing goes with hope.  We as humans, have a hard time staying content in our present lives. We are always longing for things to go back to the way that things used to be, or a specific place, or even a certain season. There are cases where we are longing for the past, when we want to return to a point in our lives where things were happy, and we were content, but we can not change what has happened in the past nor can we return and relive our past. Plantinga points out that we need to stop yearning for things that are unreachable and events that have taken place. We must have a heart of that like a child, and yearn for the future, and not the past. An example was given in class that our lives are like plowing a field, you NEED to look ahead and not behind you or your lines will not be straight. The devil loves to show us our sins and keep us dwelling in the past, but what we really need is for God to step into our lives and refocus our attention on the present and future. 

Plantinga also talk about nostalgia. This has become a problem. We start to remember and dwell upon the best part of our lives. It keeps us from living in the present because we are too busy longing for the past and to be living in a time where things were so good. It is always the past that keeps us from living in the future. Instead of living like this we need to live with shalom. Shalom should be the center of our lives, we should being hoping for peace within our lives instead of hoping for other worldly things. We need to question what is wrong in our longings that is keeping us from finding shalom. 

Finally, a point that really struck me was when we talked about longing for death. The devil loves this. We really need to stop and think about why we long for death. When a person really wants to die, it is the point where all the longing of the past, present, and future come together and gather into a huge ball. When our lives become this tangled it is then that God really wants us. It is at this point in our live that God wants to help us, where he can really use us. We need to stop longing for death and start understanding that God wants us for him.