So I just took a look back at the last entry, and what's wrong with it is of course the same thing that's wrong with the rest of me: Jesus is not central. I yammer about the meaning I find in Jesus, in how painful things are for me. But as I believe I've mentioned before, I am a walk-on in this drama we call the created order.

Even so, introspection seems unavoidable to me. One at least has to ask what one should do to put Christ at the center of one's life. Or maybe a better way of asking the question is, "How should I respond to what Jesus is, and what he has done for me?"

This is where the Heidelberg Catechism introduces the ten commandments. Well and good, but then comes the introspection: Am I keeping them? Could I do more? What about apparent conflicts of interest (e.g., between my biological family and my (would-be) church family)?

And that's not even much of a conundrum, is it? Jesus is pretty clear about where first loyalty should lie. In fact, I'm told that someone who drags his feet the way I do can't be His disciple.

If I could accept that happily, if I could say "Fine, Jesus, you go your way, I'll go mine," perhaps I could be a better, happier man-- husband and father-- than I've been lately. But I can't, quite, or maybe I don't want to. Maybe what I'm experiencing is the beginning of the hell to which I am condemned for my apostasy: I hear the call, but I don't answer, and I have to live with that. I think my motives are to do with love and devotion toward my wife and, by extension, our daughters. But I am fallen, and I am self-deceiving, and I am never sure of my ground.

It's not that I believe so strongly in the terrors of hell. If I did, fear might move me to different behavior. But there is something in me that tells me "this is true, this is how the world really is" when I read Paul, or even the Westminster Confession. Maybe that thing is the Holy Spirit. Maybe it's a perverse and pathological component of my personality that thrives on conflict and self-pity. I don't know.

But either way it makes me hate myself, and wish myself obliterated.