hinman speaks.

I suppose I should praise God for these spiritual talks about the meaning of existence with our non-christian neighbors.

And I am. I don't think it'd be right to not engage when we have so many Christians in one suite and not engage.

Yet my heart breaks when everything is talked about on such an intellectual and logical level. Because they miss it.

I'm sorry for the Crusades. I don't know how to explain them. It is in our past, and I can't deny it. What if the Christians didn't win that war? I don't know. Would Christianity have been as prevalent as it is today? I don't know. I don' know. I can only apologize for the Crusades, and acknowledge that Christians are not good people. We are terrible sinners.

And I don't know whether predestination trumps free will or free will trumps predestination.

I don't know.

But Christianity isn't a religion accepted through textbooks. God hides himself from the rich and reveals himself to the poor. God hides himself from the wise and reveals himself to children. God hides himself from the prideful and reveals himself to the humble. Jesus is God's way for the sinner. Only sinners may take this path.

Because the poor, the children, the humble -- sinners, only they see their desperate need for God. Only is God's light so clear and so life-giving when your own life is so dark.

You can't accept Christ a prideful man. There is simply no way. Christ comes when you become humble and recognize how weak we truly our, how susceptible to sin we truly are. Christ comes when we acknowledge that we with money and stability, that we lack meaning and we lack purpose. So we run to the creator of life, who before man first breathed, purposed his life and gave him meaning.

Father, open our hearts to hear.