Knowing is only Half the Battle

I spent a great deal of time outlining reasonable beliefs about God recently. I still spent far more time sleeping or trying to sleep, but I have finally reengaged with the age old question: Why am I here?

Towards the end of dinner, eating a sopaipilla for the first time, Amber marked that perhaps not caring wouldn't be so bad. I forget the context exactly, but my response was that apathy is not a path I wish I had gone down. It's by far the easiest way to get through life, but there's very little living involved. 

Perhaps correlation does not imply causation; maybe I'm just a lazy person. I worked harder, loved music and my family more, and slept better at night back when I had a relationship with God, whatever it was. I also have learned that the world and people are a lot uglier than I thought. But Amber asked me a good question: What do I expect life with Christ to be like, compared to now?

I expect His love to be transformative. I hope to rely on a strength greater than my own to live the life He calls me to. I want to feel like I've been made new.

But I want to come to God on my own terms. I want to be convinced of His perfection through reason; to believe that my need for Him is necessary by design. I don't like feeling that I need Him because I don't feel well, or because I selfishly desire something in my life. Faith shouldn't be a crutch for weakness. That it is more reassuring to believe in a benevolent god than not is no reason for belief.

The key thing that distinguishes Christianity from other religions is Christ. What matters is whether Jesus was who He said He was and did what He said He did. The evidence we have to determine whether the Bible is True is the Bible itself, along with what we observe in Nature and ourselves. God can also talk to us through special or direct revelation, but they seem reserved to those who already believe and follow Him.

As this post is becoming unwieldy, I will outline my thoughts in a separate post. But assuming Christianity's explanation of salvation makes logical sense to me, I find myself in a familiar spot. How do I believe? I think what frustrated me before was the lack of any feelings of affirmation. It felt like I would ask God for guidance and not hear anything. Why play games? I didn't expect the clouds to part and a mighty voice accompanied by trumpets. But whispered riddles are not a very effective way to communicate.

Knowing how Christianity works has never been the problem for me. People aren't atheists and agnostics and Muslims and Hindus because they can't comprehend Christianity. They choose to believe in something else.