How did God fail me, one might ask? I would rephrase the question slightly. As in, how did my idea of God fail me? Because I believe whether or not a God of some sort actually exists, it is only one's idea of said God that can potentially offer life-altering benefits.
For me, in spite of the fact that I really believed (at least I think I did), this neither encouraged nor discouraged me from doing anything beyond which I would or would not have done anyway. For many, just the idea of a wonderful God cheering them on is encouragement enough to do amazing feats that would otherwise not be done. These feats then become the “proof of the pudding” that God had something, perhaps everything, to do with them. Voila, belief! But alas, this did not happen with me.
A quick appraisal of this may cause some to pity me because apparently my idea of God neither encouraged nor discouraged me from doing things I would or would not have done anyway.
However, I see something very encouraging and meaningful in this, to me at least. It suggests that I have only ever been myself, just the way God made me.
For me, in spite of the fact that I really believed (at least I think I did), this neither encouraged nor discouraged me from doing anything beyond which I would or would not have done anyway. For many, just the idea of a wonderful God cheering them on is encouragement enough to do amazing feats that would otherwise not be done. These feats then become the “proof of the pudding” that God had something, perhaps everything, to do with them. Voila, belief! But alas, this did not happen with me.
A quick appraisal of this may cause some to pity me because apparently my idea of God neither encouraged nor discouraged me from doing things I would or would not have done anyway.
However, I see something very encouraging and meaningful in this, to me at least. It suggests that I have only ever been myself, just the way God made me.
"For me, in spite of the fact that I really believed (at least I think I did), this neither encouraged nor discouraged me from doing anything beyond which I would or would not have done anyway."
ReplyDeleteI am glad you acknowledge that you may have not really believed at all ["(at least I think I did)"].
Furthermore, God did not make you to be a sinner, but rebellion is the nature of man without God's Spirit in him and guiding him into all truth so as to change over time into the image of Jesus.
A person can have an "intellectual belief devoid of God's Spirit-life. It can be religious, GOd-oriented, even emotionally driven with feelings of interest and purpose and still not be "of God." Social circumstance can stimulate an intellectual only faith - how you were raised, what friends called you into their circle of meaning, or some other religious drive that was "one way" in a persons search for meaning in life. And, like gasoline running out on a lawnmower [compared to the electricity available from a power cord], you could intellectually and emotionally come to the end of a "self-driven" faith and decide that no more volitional effort is necessary or worth it.
Jesus said it, "It is the Spirit that gives life. My words are spirit and they are life."
If you do not build personal faith around the words of Jesus, then faith can easily dwindle down to the words of great Christian writers who defend the Christian faith [C.S. Lewis, G.k. Chesterton, Augustine, etc.]. But if all that is there is a respect for "great thinking men" then as soon as other forms of "great thinking men" come along, one groups of presupositions can be exchanged for another groups that are entirely different becasue the basis of faith all along has been one motivated by self-driven energy without any true relational faith with the personal God Jesus reveals through His words.
Dry crusty rusty intellectual reasoning alone [and I emphasize "alone" because there is import in reasoning], can fix itself on anything, from "how many angels dance on the head of a pin" in medieval theology to black hole theory and the expansion of or bending of the universe upon itself. If all one uses is his logic alone, that logic can be bent by what ever captivates his imagination and keeps him fixed on it.
I am fixed upon Jesus Christ becaus ehe is more than mere rational theology to me. I like thinking theological reasonings that explain my faith. But if that's all it was, it would be like using someone's medical charts to prove that a person exists that I have never met.
As soon as someone comes along with an argument that my medical chart I am trusting in is wrong, and I adopt that arument, then I cast away the medical chart in unbelief because I never really met the person who the medical chart claims to represent.
SO what you once believed in may have been totally self-driven faith based upon intellectual reasoning without the personal presence of God stimulating your faith in the medical chart and confirming its reality.
Someone comes along and denies the validity of the medical chart and your self-driven rather than God-driven faith fails you.
Jesus came to save sinners. Do you see yourself as one? If not, then the whole "relationship with Jesus" thing can be just a theological medical chart to easily throw away.
ReplyDelete"Heb 12:1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Heb 12:3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
But the medical chart that may show the real problem may be yours. Is there some besetting sin that you would rather nurse and continue than wrestle with "faith in God through Christ" about.
Is there some pleasure in the flesh that is your real presupposition for rejecting faith and you don't want to face your own medical chart on that basis. Chuck Jesus and God and I am free to indulge myself.
I am not saying that is the problem. I am just suggesting that 1) reason alone is not adequate for Christian faith [feelings and will need to be addresed as well], although it is important and 2) our reasons for denying faith can be that there is just something about us we don't want give up [there is that feelings and will factor again] so we stop fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith and put our eyes on that one thing that will let us play god with our own lives [at the feelings and will level if we just keep ratonalizing it continually to ourselves].