donut

That's one of many questions that has been in my mind for a while now. But then it hit me, how do I make promises? There are varying degrees promises.

At one end there are promises like those made in marriage, to stay with someone through thick and thin. These are made true in small and large decisions, usually in the moment, as things come. It's not about specific actions; it's about how one will respond to what may come up and the general direction they'll guide themselves in so that the promise may be fulfilled.

At the other end, there are promises about clear, specific actions. Usually, before promising something like this I want to already be able to see the path I'll take to get this promise fulfilled and how likely it is that the path will work. And if I make the promise and that path that I imagined before doesn't work out, I find a new way, possibly sacrificing other, less important things I wanted to accomplish.

I went on a bike ride this morning, taking my normal daytime route. But when I got to the place I would normally make my first turn, I forgot and went straight. Immediately after I passed it I realized my mistake and was about to turn around go my normal way. But just before that I had a little nudging urging me to keep going straight.

This nudging feeling is well known to me. I have come to identify it as one of the ways God guides me. It's very gentle. Easy to miss and ignore.

Noticing this, I continue straight, confused since I don't see any reason. The other path is nicer, there aren't any cars, and I get to be near water. Anyway, I don't turn back.

Further along I notice that I'm getting tired. The path back is up hill and there's much I want to do today. I thought that I should turn back at this next intersection or I'll over do it as I have many times in the past. But the nudging is there again, almost unnoticable. I continue.

Another mile and I've reached the end of the road I'm on. If I go straight I'll just head into some buildings that looks vageuly like a school. I'm about to turn around but the nudging pushes me further. I realize it's a pool. A public pool even.

This is great! My wife is away right now but when she returns she was hoping to find a pool near us that is reasonably priced. This one is perfect. And, at least as far as I can tell, this seems to be the goal of the nudging.

I don't always see direct results from following these nudgings. The result in this case seems fairly insignificant. A Google Maps search surely would have brought this up. But I did go in and ask questions and got to look around. Now my mind is thinking about and more open to swimming.

Considering my upbringing and my belief in and believed relationship with God, it's quite natural that I attribute these nudgings to God. Admittedly, it would likely be an impossible sell to get me see things differently especially consider other spiritual experiences I have had that, as I see them, back up my world view.

If evolution-denying Christian scientists are correct that there are major problems with the theory of evolution then I would expect the following to be true:

Evolution-denying Christian scientists have independently come up with the same evidence against the theory of evolution.

There exist scientists from other world views (religions, etc) who have independently come up with the same evidence against the theory of evolution.