Faith Filled Only Please
Ok... this is an experiement in blog participation. I'll see how it goes.
Earlier in my blog I referred to a question that I posed to the elders of my old church about five years ago. I asked them where they went inside their hearts when their faith was shaken. I'd like to pose a similar question here, to those who confidently declare that Jesus Christ is King, Lord, and Savior:
Why do you believe?
Thomas believed because he saw Jesus and felt the wounds in His hands. Many people believed only after seeing miracles. Paul believed because of a very intimate and real run-in with God. And many have believed since for a whole variety of reasons.
I am curious to know how you will put in to words what brought you to belief. Was it a dream you had? Was it a cry to the heavens begging for help in a time of need... that if only it would be answered... you would follow Him forever? Was it a fire that was lit in your soul when you heard the salvation offer from Jesus?
Simply as a point of clarification... I am much more curious as to WHY you believe than the HOW you came to believe it, though obviously the two will often go hand in hand.
And let me also clarify what I'm NOT looking for. I'm not looking for references to all the Scripture that proclaims He is Savior to the world. I'm not looking for you to prove to me that Jesus is God. I'm not looking to debate or argue with you (for once). And I'm not looking to judge your faith journey.
Wether your experience is TOTALLY different than somebody else's comment, or it is almost exactly the same... please share!
Earlier in my blog I referred to a question that I posed to the elders of my old church about five years ago. I asked them where they went inside their hearts when their faith was shaken. I'd like to pose a similar question here, to those who confidently declare that Jesus Christ is King, Lord, and Savior:
Why do you believe?
Thomas believed because he saw Jesus and felt the wounds in His hands. Many people believed only after seeing miracles. Paul believed because of a very intimate and real run-in with God. And many have believed since for a whole variety of reasons.
I am curious to know how you will put in to words what brought you to belief. Was it a dream you had? Was it a cry to the heavens begging for help in a time of need... that if only it would be answered... you would follow Him forever? Was it a fire that was lit in your soul when you heard the salvation offer from Jesus?
Simply as a point of clarification... I am much more curious as to WHY you believe than the HOW you came to believe it, though obviously the two will often go hand in hand.
And let me also clarify what I'm NOT looking for. I'm not looking for references to all the Scripture that proclaims He is Savior to the world. I'm not looking for you to prove to me that Jesus is God. I'm not looking to debate or argue with you (for once). And I'm not looking to judge your faith journey.
Wether your experience is TOTALLY different than somebody else's comment, or it is almost exactly the same... please share!
Rules: I will delete any comments that are not answering this question, are off-topic, or are critical of any comment by somebody else. I will not be replying to or addressing any comments shared.
posted by Miroslav at 10:58 PM
8 Comments:
My folks were agnostic, and, not long ago, my agnostic mom emailed me this: "I have no idea as to why you became involved in your religion since you were raised in a family that did not "go to church" nor "say Grace" at mealtime, nor read the Bible every day. Maybe some day you will explain to me why you followed the course you did, and when."
I did not believe until I was nearly 28 years old.
Miroslav asks: "What brought you to belief? I am much more curious as to WHY you believe than the HOW you came to believe it."
Existential choice brought me to belief. I believed because it was an alternative before me, and it seemed like the thing to do, at the time: it seemed the emotionally and materially most beneficial alterative, the path of least resistance. It kept my conscience clear, and kept me with three squares and a bed.
The choice to believe was not concurrent with any emotional sense that what I was choosing to believe was true or real. I had no gut experience that God existed.
I didn't even really know what the word "God" meant: it was not a word whose definition I knew. One does not always understand the full meaning of one's actions.
To believe, or not to believe: the choice was mine to make. One way or another, I felt I had to act. The action I took was to believe.
"I believe there is a God, whatever that means, and that Jesus is his only son, and that Jesus is God, and died for my sins, whatever that means, and what-all else the Bible says, which I will now find out."
I believed it because I chose to. I didn't feel it was true. My gut did not confirm my choice.
I had only my awareness that "to believe" is a behavior, an act. Action not of muscle tissue, but of neurons, synapses. To believe: it is not external behavior. To believe: it is internal behavior. To believe: it is behavior. And any behavior one takes is taken by choice.
To believe: it is an act. The alternatives lay before me. I acted. I believed. My choice. To believe: it is an act of the will. Free will.
Did I know in my gut that God existed?
No, I did not.
Free will needs no emotional assurance.
Once that dawned on me, I was able to get past my psychological objection to belief. I realized that one does not need to "feel" that God exists in order to "believe" that God exists. I was able to be in a place in my head where I was able to say, "I know God exists because I believe it, not because I feel it (since, I don't feel it)."
That's pretty much where I was, in my head, when I first came to belief.
So, to sum up:
Why did I believe?
Because I chose to.
Why did I choose to?
Selfish reasons.
Was my choice accompanied by a gut sense that what I was believing was true?
No.
Why do I believe?
I believe because I have no other choice than to believe. God is more real to me than the air that I breathe (which I can’t see either). God is more solid in my life than the sidewalk that I stand on.
I see His hand move. I’ve seen miracles. But even if He was silent in my life I’d HAVE to believe.
I see the evidence of his handiwork in nature. The planets are aligned in a straight line and circle around a lonely star we call the sun in perfect order. The earth has just the right mix of oxygen and hydrogen to support life. The temperature of earth is just right to support life. The planet is just the right size to provide the right gravity that is optimal for life. What kind of odds are that?
Even though the earth rotates around the sun and planets, stars and moons change location, the north star stays constant.
I don’t know how many gallons of water are in the ocean. But God knows how many teaspoons of water are there.
I believe because I can’t draw a leaf but God created beautiful, varied leaves that use photosynthesis and chlorophyll to produce oxygen.
Did you know that every human eye has more than 200 colors in it? Each of those colors are directed by a unique set of genes. Did you know that the way that the eyes communicate with the brain is utterly amazing. Experiments have been done where glasses are worn day and night that shows what is seen upside down. After 24 hours of wearing the glasses the brain adjusts and turns the vision of the world right side up again.
Did you know that bees communicate with each other with a very intricate dance? Their honeycomb is build with very thin material but the shape that they use is so strong that we’ve used it in space aeronautics.
I believe because God’s word is rich and powerful and pierces my soul like a sword. I believe because when I come into His presence I’m overawed by His BIGNESS.
I believe in Jesus because He wasn’t just a good man. He wasn’t crazy. He lived a life on earth that was amazing and challenging. He helped people. He healed people. He threw people that were committing spiritual abuse out of the temple.
I believe because reading prophesies about the end times is like reading todays newspaper, even though the prophesies were made thousands of years ago.
My question is how can someone who has his eyes open to events and creation around him cannot believe?
I'd made a mess of my young adult life, didn't heed the teachings of my loving parents and knew I'd hurt them although they didn't divulge their own heartache and disappointments in my choices but rather made very evident their unconditional love for me...which made me feel crummier because I knew I didn't deserve such love.
Growing up, I'd accepted the notion that God is, because my parents raised us with that premise. However, in high school, because my smart friends talked abt being agnostic, I decided I'd better be agnostic, too, because it was looking like it was not cool to believe in God the Creator. So I spoke of believing in some kind of creative force but wouldn't acknowledge that as God. I'm thinking I didn't know what I believed at that point.
I made a determination sometime in the high school era to read the Bible from cover to cover. I think I stopped after Deuteronomy because the repetition was too mystical and rather dull at the time. I did come away with a sense of wonder of all the illicit, sinful stuff in the early books; never knew THAT kind of stuff was in the Bible!
Then I met the guy in college who was pretty anti-belief, but I was "in love" because he showed affection to me. Eventually we married, founded on nothing solid. Tempted by outside influences when I no longer felt loved enough by him. Broke the so-called vows made before a justice of the peace, vows that really didn't have much in the way of commitment for a marital bond.
Moved back home with the folks and siblings who loved me no matter what. Eventually (probably due to the prayers of this faithful family) I felt undone by the choices I'd made that unraveled my marriage and felt lousy about the ripple affect to family and friends. Guilt and shame were useful in awakening my conscience and a desire to get cleansing. While we worked on a project together, Dad gently asked me to consider going with the family to church. I choked, heard myself saying I couldn't do my life by myself any more--my "sinner's prayer."
The songs in the church service, the message with its Bible teachings, hit directly, and I apprehended that I was a sinner, no matter all the times I'd tried to "be good." A couple more church visits and I was going willingly, and I one day concluded, "I am one--I'm a Christian, I believe this stuff, because it's about my life."
When I look at my younger brothers' faith experiences and intellectual challenges with believing, I would say my decisions to believe are more emotionally based rather than intellectually coming to an understanding. Works for me! Yeah, "selfish reasons" is at the root, I'm sure in my case.
But more and more as I repeat reading the Bible, it's the "cloud of witnesses" before us who've believed to the end of their lives and the uncanny, timely events in the history of my life which point to more than coincidence that give credence to why I believe.
Great question! Theology is only as believable as the effect it has in people's lives.
I grew up in the baptist church learning bible and seeing it lived out in people's lives a lot less than it should be... namely a lot of legalism and especially in my family, very little understanding while quite a bit of ramming it down our throats was going on. It was striclty head knowledge and I knew how to act like a good Christian girl to get the priviledges I wanted. In college that hypocrisy continued and I got myslef involved with the wrong crowd seeking popularity. I ended up being date raped and didn't know who to turn to. My parents found out that something was up and began to "ask for prayer for their wayward daughter" which totally ruined my reputation. I only just told them a few years ago what really happened... over 10 years after the fact. They were more worried about what my actions did to their reputation. See I knew all the right answers but I didn't have the hope or the strength to lean on when the going got tough. I hadn't really given over control of my life to God and I certainly could not deal with what had happened (and was continuing to happen) to me. This continued (the raping) to happen over 3 months until finally I cried out to God asking him to DO SOMETHING or I would end my life. I gave Him 5 days. 3 days later we got word that when my grandfather had recently died that he left me a sum of money in his will... it turned out to be, to the penny, the tuition price of a small Christian college I had wanted to go to. in 3 weeks I was there and sobbing through every class, running out to the beach after each class to yell at God. I was pouring over the scriptures and trying to make the empty words mean something to my circumstances. Little did I know that 2 of my classmates that I hadn't even met yet followed me every day and sat and pryed each day for me. After about 2 weeks, I was sitting sobbing and they came, one on each side, and simply cried with me. They simply shared with me how GOd had mended their broken hearts and shared that hope with me. I finally gave my whole heart to Christ and I have never looked back. When I came to the end of me, there was room for Jesus. HIs laws for my life keep me from some of the pain of living any old way I want and give my life purpose. I want to share that hope with everyone I meet. It isn't about laws, but freedom within the boundaries of a loving God. When I overstep those bounds I place myself at risk. The pain in my life now is sometimes caused by others, but I allow God to use it in my life to create character and allow myself to depend on Him further and further. There have been and continue to be blessings in my life that cannot be explained away as anything but the hand of God.
Hmmm... Should be an easy question to answer. But the "why" is different than the "how".
I believe because nothing else makes any sense. When I tried to live my life apart from God's presence it was miserable. I utterly failed again and again to manage on my own with my own choices and realized that there was nothing good in the selfish choices that I was making.
Arrows gma d said it all so well. But I can agree that God has revealed Himself to me in so many ways both tangible and non-tangible. The Presence of His Spirit cannot be denied even though there are times when I could not sense His presence, the times that I have keep me trusting Him.
I wonder though, believing that there is a God and Having faith are different in that having faith means living your life based on that knowledge and chosing to make decisions according to the word of God. We have all heard that even Satan believed in God (he did not deny His existence) but he did not have faith in Him,chosing to follow Him and submit his life to His authority. I guess that my journey is better defined as finding faith in Him because I do not remember a time when I did not believe in God.
Some days I don't, others I must drag myself (kicking and screaming?) toward belief.
And then others come by way of looking at the small things around me and realizing that He is everywhere. "All creation cries out..."
My times of belief come when I experience God as real and have a sense of my heart being connected to His...when I stop tryng to "make" myself believe and find it happens when I am healed during times of giving myself away..of course, that healing temporary.
I am still working at believing, as I try and get my mind around what EXACTLY the Gospel is...get away from the "feel good story and easy answer to all life's problems" and more connected to "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done..." The part of the Gospel that is not all about bullet points and simple applications and more toward the mysterious, flowing of the Spirit and trying to sense His presence moving all around me, all the time...then belief is closer and clearer.
Why? My biggest realization is that if I go to the Sciptures in humility, each time (its hard to explain) God meets me and I can feel/sense/know he is working on me and through me...I feel more connected at those times, more part of His heart. If only those times were more often...
Woman of Faith raises good points about "faith" versus "belief"which were in my own mind when I pondered what Miroslav was really asking. Miroslav's post title is " Faith Filled Only Please"and I am not sure how that is supposed to inform our response to his specific questions, the which do not themselves actually mention faith. I took it to mean that he is asking that his questions about others' belief be answered by persons of faith.
(By "faith filled" does Miroslav mean "filled up"? In that case, I am disqualified. Does "faith filled" include folks whose faith could stand some increasing? If so, well, Jesus tells me that if my faith is mustard seed -size yada yada, in which case I'm included in Miroslav's title. Or, maybe Miroslav meant "saving faith." I thank God for my salvation. So, I took Miroslav's title as including me, and went on to address his request for a witness as to "belief.")
Like Woman of Faith, I, too, distinguish between belief and faith. But, Miroslav has said that he no longer has belief. (How can there be faith without belief?) His literal request was, and I quote: "I am curious to know how you will put in to words what brought you to belief. I am much more curious as to WHY you believe than the HOW you came to believe it."
How could I, or anyone, have faith without belief? I don't know. But, when I had neither, God had already imparted forgiveness to me. I just didn't believe in God. I didn't what the word "God" even denoted. Ignorance and nonbelief.
Faith and forgiveness are gifts from God. But "belief"? Miroslav no longer has belief, he says. Even the devil believes. But I? I had no belief. No belief in God. No understanding about God.
For me, without belief, how could I have ever received the faith God offers? And, unlike faith or forgiveness, belief is something God allows Man the capacity to choose freely with spiritually blind sinful human will. Even the devil believes.
Arrows Gma D said, "I believe because I have no other choice than to believe." Present tense. That provokes me to look at Miroslav's question differently than I had done. Miroslav's opening question under the sub-headline "Why Do You Believe?" was "I am curious to know how you will put in to words what brought you to belief." This led me to think in terms of my personal conversion experience.
But Arrows Gma D's reply seems to focus more on Miroslav's later question (and that sub-headline): "I am much more curious as to WHY you believe than the HOW you came to believe it." Arrows Gma D's reply seems to address the question as if it was, "Why do you CONTINUE to believe?"
I wish I had no choice other than to believe. From a position of faith, yes: it is the only choice available. But faith is always open to being assailed. Yes, I cannot be snatched out of my Father's hand. But one can certainly shipwreck one's faith, and what sinner is immune to that? This world is the devil's domain, and every time Doubt is dangled before me, I must respond anew with a decision.
God's kingdom in this world is the church, which is the body of believers, all who have received forgiveness of sins. God's kingdom is not the devil's domain, but, in this world, there is a tension. Saved sinners (I) face temptation to abandon faith, surrender to unbelief. "Let God be true, and every man a liar." Why do I continue to believe? "Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."Been there, done that. But, "He sustains the universe by the mighty power of his command." Likewise, my belief (and faith) must be sustained.
When Doubt creeps upon me, Why do I continue to believe? I do have a choice. Doubt demands I act. "Get behind me, Satan." In the solitude of my lonely room, I have said it more times than I remember. I believe. I so choose.
When I first made that decision to believe, when I first believed, I had it in mind that I could always return to my nonbelief frame of mind at some later date. I did not realize the full meaning of what I was doing. But, as I began to walk in the resolve of my decision to believe, something happened to me. The faith thing? Oh, that came in time. Not that. It was this: having once made the commitment of that choosing to believe, I was committed.
Miroslav says he is a husband and father. Why does Miroslav continue to be a husband and father? The choice is open to him to divorce his wife and disown his children. The law allows for that. Is Miroslav ever tempted?. Why does Miroslav continue to be a husband and father?
When I am tempted to abandon belief, when doubt comes upon me, I banish it from my heart. My having made that decision to believe, I discovered (discovered too late - I'm saved), is like getting married. It was a commitment. Doubt? Doubt is not a question of wanting out of that decision. Doubt is a serpent asking me, "Is it real?"
"If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." Why do I continue to believe? It's my choice. A commitment. For better or worse. But God has never been bad to me. People? Yes. God? No. God has been true to me. And he allows me the choice to reject belief. He allows me to make myself a liar. To run out on my commitment. And he is still committed to me. Why do I believe? I choose to.
Why do I believe?
A wonderful question for all of us Christians to contemplate from time to time!
I believe that faith is a journey...yes, there's the moment we humble ourselves before God and accept by faith that we're sinners and that Jesus is our saviour, but in my experience we grow in the revelation of what that all means. When I say yes to God's revealing Himself and His ways to me...my faith grows stronger.
I was a young child when I first believed in Christ. He was as real to me as my mom and dad were...I can't explain how that can be for a child of 5 or 6 but when I sang in worship to Him, He was there with me, loving me! Maybe it has something to do with Jesus taking a child onto His lap and saying, "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven". Through my childhood and teen years, God continued to embrace me with His love. I remember laughing and crying with him...and so my faith grew.
Thinking about this, I consider...a parent can deeply love a child but until that child accepts and embraces the parent's love, it's limited in its impact on the child's life. God loves each person He created but until that person responds to His love in belief...blindness to the truth will continue.
Why do I believe? I've experienced God's faithfulness when nothing else was sure, His peace when the storms of life threatened to capsize my boat, His joy when my earthly happiness dissoved into tears, His love when I've felt so alone with only Him to turn to, and His hope and comfort that nothing on this earth can replace.
I also have faith because of the impact of God's Word on my life. God's truth and promises have convicted, challenged, empowereed and comforted me in many ways these past 40+ years of walking with Jesus.
Some of His Words which have powerfully strengthened my faith are...
"His mercies are new every morning, great is His faithfulness"
"You are precious in my sight"
"When you pass through the waters I will be with you"
"Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength"
"You will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation"
"Fear not, I am with you"
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not lack any good thing"
"Jesus came to comfort all that mourn"
"The Lord is near to all who call on Him"
"Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you"
"Tell the generation to come the praises of the Lord...that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments".
This last command and desire of God is why I'm responding to this blog at all...oh, how I long for you to again put your confidence in God, not to forget His works and to keep His commandments! Then you, too, will be telling the generation to come about the wonders of God, so their faith will flourish.
Yes! I believe my faith has come from listening and applying the Words of God to my life.
This is probably a mixture of the how and the why of my belief...but there you have it!
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