I need a secretary...for my life...

So I've come to the conclusion that I need a secretary or administrative assistant or something for my life. Not for my job - for my life. I basically abhor organization in all of its forms. I am much more comfortable with confusion and choas. I hate schedules and lists and calandars and deadlines and appointments, etc. Why plan something when you can play it by ear? Why prepare for something when you can wing it? Why do something now when I could do it later? And so on...
Of course, I'm not really that bad. Basically, if you want to get where I am you go to the absolute extreme of disorganization, take about three or four steps back toward organized, and there you will find me - casually oblivious.

Post-Modernism

I recently joined a Christian Forum site and one of my posts was on a thread about secular music. There was a girl who started a thread asking people's opinions about listening to secular music. I was quite concerned by the types of responses I heard. It wasn't necessarily what they said, but the kind of thinking that led to their responses. It was very "post-modern." All these Christians were totally throwing off any sense of absolutes, basically saying, "Go with your heart. Whatever feels right." Let me quote one of the responses:

I hate focusing on right and wrong. Let's focus on our hearts. Focusing on what is good and bad, is a trap. What does it do to your heart? Thats the fundamental question. Just ask yourself that. What's right for you, may not be right for me, what's right for me, may not be right for you.

This sounds more like a quote out of a Post-Modernism 101 textbook (they don't actually have textbooks, that goes against their philosophy. Defining themselves would actually defeat the purpose of their philosophy. They're more like a non-philosophy or a non-culture).
Am I the only one who is concerned by this type of thinking? Is our heart really the "fundamental question"? BTW, I don't actually completely disagree with his conclusion, I am more concerned about how he got there.
It got me thinking though. Are our hearts really "the fundamental thing"? Is it always right to "go with what your heart tells you"? What about when our hearts are conflicted? I know I'm not always sure what my heart is saying. How should I make decisions then? It seems to me that we need something more concrete, something more objective to lean upon than the inclinations of our hearts. But that's very un-post-modern of me.

Short Cuts

I was reading in Matthew 4 today, the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. The final temptation caught my eye. It was where Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of the world by Satan, and was offered them in exchange for worship. Jesus, of course, refused, and Satan left him.
This is a very interesting temptation. Why would Satan offer to make Jesus the ruler of the world. Of course, he was only willing to do it if Jesus was willing to worship him, which means that he would still be the de facto ruler. It still seems interesting, though.
I think Satan offered this to Jesus because it was already Jesus destiny to rule the world. Jesus knew it, but He knew that the path to His kingdom led through the Cross. Satan basically offered Jesus a shortcut. "You don't need to go through all that stuff to get the world, I'll give it to you right now - just change your allegiance from God to me.”
Of course, Satan's offer was a counterfeit. It really wouldn't have been the same as what God promised Jesus, but still, it must have been tempting, even if only on a very small scale.
Then I thought - Satan basically does the same thing to us. How many times do we take shortcuts around God's will? How often do we know what is right, but decide we don’t want to go through the process to get it. People steal because they want money, or they want the thing they stole. They do this because it is a shortcut to their goal. The long way around (but the right way) is to get a job, save up some money, and buy the thing. But this way isn't instant, and it isn't easy, but it is God's way.
I recently heard a statistic that was staggering, though I believe it. I heard that the percentage of people who live together/sleep together before marriage is in the vast majority (like 75% or higher). If a person holds to the virtue of waiting until marriage, they become the odd ball, they're weird, they're in the minority, and there is social pressure against them. It occurs to me that this is also simply a shortcut. Honestly, I think that the loss of this virtue in our culture is a major contributor to the loss of the sense of the sacredness of marriage. People live together, but don't get married - why? Well, if you’re already acting like a married couple - living together, sleeping together, having kids together, etc., what's the point of getting married? The idea is that you can have all the benefits of being married, without actually making a commitment to one another. It is enjoying end product without going through the process. It's a shortcut.
But let's face it, we all take shortcuts around God's will, usually in "little" things, but we still do it. I feel challenged, and I hope you do too, not to take shortcuts. To actually value the process, not just endure it (as I think God does). Let's allow God to take us the long way 'round so that when we actually arrive at the place when God is leading us, we'll actually appreciate it more, and we'll have the character to really know what to do with it.

Remember Joseph. He was destined to be the ruler of Egypt, but he had to be thrown in a well, sold into slavery, lied about, and thrown into prison before he got there. But he learned a lot along the way. Most importantly, he learned integrity. We need to embrace the process God leads us through, knowing that His purpose is not just the end-product, but what happens in between.
Rom. 5:3-5

Choice

This is an interesting concept. This is going to be a bit philosophical, so hold on to your hankies!
I actually began pondering this concept recently after having a...temptation (I guess you could call it that). I had an inkling to do something that I don't think God would have been happy about (I'm not telling, so stop wondering! You know you had one of these inklings lately too). Anyway, directly following this little inkling was this amazingly simple and profound thought - I have a choice. I don't have to do every little thing that comes into my brain to do! It was not that I didn't realize this before, but the simplicity of it just struck me. I have the ability to say no when I am tempted. You have that ability too. This sent my mind careening through a wonderful series of concepts that I'll probably preach on some day. So here goes...
Theological:
We all know the story of Adam and Eve, and how God placed them in the middle of the Garden and said, "You can eat of any tree in this garden except that one," (God points to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), "Don't eat the fruit of that tree or else you'll die." (The Jeff Rossman paraphrase).
To many Christians this sounds like a "Don't think of a purple elephant" scenario. I mean, let's admit it, if someone were to invite you over to their house and say, "Hey, make yourself at home, but whatever you do, don't open that box over there!" Your mind would be fixated all night on that box, right? So, this is how we see the story of the Garden.
HOWEVER, think of it from a different angle. What if God decided not to put that tree there? For sure there would have been no temptation, we'd all still be holy and in perfect fellowship with God, right? Or would we?
Without that Tree there, our first parents would never have had the option of disobeying God, for sure, but they would never have had the opportunity to truly obey God either. The whole idea of obedience is predicated upon the reality of choice. Robots do what we tell them to do because that is how they are programmed. They really don't have the capacity to disobey, and thus they really don't have the capacity to obey (although there are times when I feel like my computer is being very stubborn). Thus we do not ever ascribe moral qualities to machines, because they have no choice.
With animals it becomes more complicated, because on some level I think they do have the power of choice. But not like we do. Any choice they make is based on pure instinct. Instinct tells them to run to the right instead of the left when in danger. Not that they couldn't have gone left (implying that there was choice), but they don't have the ability to contemplate choice.
Then we come to human beings. We have the ability to choose, and the ability to contemplate our choices. This makes us culpable (morally responsible for our choices). Sometimes we do things that defy our own conscience (does anyone else find that strange?). We do things that we know we shouldn't do, that we don't even want to do, but we do them anyway and then feel guilty about it. This is because we made a conscious choice. Without choice we could never be held responsible for our sin, but neither could we be held responsible for doing the right thing. There would be no righteousness. There would be no obedience.
This is why God gave our Parents a choice in the Garden, because without choice they could never choose to love God, they would simply be "programmed" to love, having no other option.
Practical:
Okay, so we understand then that God gave us the gift of choice so that we would choose to serve and love Him. But this is all easier said than done. Even if I am consciously aware of the fact that I have a choice, this doesn't ensure that I will make the right choice. When tempted I may weigh my choices knowing full well that one path leads to righteousness and one path leads to sin, and I may still choose to sin. Anyone been there? Am I the only one who has ever consciously disobeyed God?
Let's face it, when we boil everything down, we're still wicked, we're still sinful, there's still a lot of darkness in us. So how do we make the right choices? Try harder? In my experience, "Try harder," never really works. Then what? Here's the only answer that works...we need God's help!!! We need to remember that we're not doing this thing called life alone. So often we leave God out of our decision-making process. Oh, sure, we include Him in the "big" stuff like, what job should I take, or, which house or car should we buy? But is this really the "big" stuff? Should I lie to my wife about where I was last night? Should I keep myself sexually pure until marriage? Should I forgive that person who hurt me? THESE are the big questions, and how often we make choices like these without ever consulting God, without praying and asking God for strength every day to make right choices...