Once upon a time, stories of demons, angels, and miracles excited me. They spoke to the reality that I was taught of, but had never seen. They hinted at something beyond my own experience, a plane of nature that I would be forced to regard with fear and reverence. A shard of that remains, but it lies defeated after little nourishment over these past few years.
On my last day at L’Abri, my Swedish tutor asked me if I ever prayed. I told him no – it feels a useless activity. I have yet to see a tangible response. I might as well talk to a wall, and in fact, that is what I used to do, from a literal standpoint. He scoffed and asked if I believe in God – which I do. What kind of God do I believe in, then, that I do not pray to him, my perfectly good and all-powerful creator?
Sources are everything. Many, I believe, find their source of faith in anecdotes of old women rising from the firm grip of death. That shard within me yearns to have my belief confirmed by a lovely story such as this. But I cannot escape the fact that leaping for miracles is a wholly useless activity. It defies logic, progress, rationality – if we were so impatient as to pass off our ignorance as miraculous, we would be nowhere and a half. Praying for miracles is, I believe, a mostly foolish activity. Miracles are, by nature, the exception. To expect the exception is poor faith, to say the least.
All that to say, I wonder what my source of faith is. My faith is tremendously weak – I know, I understand, but my belief sees a paltry level of realization. Having walked away from anecdotal evidence and hand-me-down stories, I am left with frustratingly little – a handful of people I admire, and a book of eerily accurate wisdom about human nature and the surrounding world. The moments where I can only say “I don’t know how I know this to be true” are becoming more frequent, and this endlessly vexes me. I’m tired of uncertainty. I’m tired of being unsure. Yeah, Crede, ut intelligas, but that whole belief part isn’t just a choice. It has to come from somewhere.
Where the fuck am I supposed to derive my beliefs, with so little to trust?
My initial response broke and so I have to rewrite it now… so it probably wont be as good as what I first wrote, lol.
The simple truth I live with is that the doctrine and belief system upheld by “Christians”, when wholely submitted to, has never led me to a negative end. That is to say, that total submission to “the wall” in this case has not once, in my entire life, brought me a result contrary to what those beliefs suggest would happen. So IF I am able to stay on the sometimes difficult path my life is predictably filled with positive things. I have a hard time finding a downside to this.
It seems to me kind of silly thinking of it now, that my entire belief system and faith is suspended upon the idea of “when i do this I dont get hurt”… but it goes further then that. Not only do I not get hurt, but I am furthered in life. If I follow the specified path, I receive spiritual fulfillment and refreshment.
On top of that, I know of many who share similar experience and none whom following Christ has failed. Has it been so different for you?