I often have these troubling moments when I totally don’t believe in God anymore, and I wonder what it would be like to live without Him.
I was an atheist for most of my life, so these thoughts are comfortable and familiar, like the blue plaid super-hero cape I wore in third grade. I go down a spiral of binge-reading atheism blogs and I can’t stop myself. I start to wonder if God even does anything because there’s so much horror in the world, or if He’s just a construct of a hopeful mind looking for momentary relief. It can take days to pull back from this, and doubts never really fade; you just live with them.
I remember the words of that father with the demon-possessed son, who told Jesus, “I do believe, but help my unbelief!” And Jesus healed him. He didn’t shut them down. He didn’t say, “You better believe all the way first.” I get to thinking there must be more than all this, and that God did break into this fractured world somehow and began a healing at some point in history for all of eternity, an invitation to a new story, a reversal of entropy. I get to thinking we’re not just spinning alone out here, and that this is all going somewhere, and I have this tiny mustard-seed-sized faith that Jesus tells me can move mountains. I think even if this isn’t true, I so badly want it to be, and maybe that’s okay too. I do believe, and he doesn’t shame me for my unbelief. For that, I can believe Him — and for a moment, the mountains get shaken.
— J.S.
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian 
I appreciate your transparency.
LikeLike
That horrifying moment indeed, caught in between the past and the new life in Christ filled with doubt, and yet I keep marching forward by His abundant grace. Thanks Ps.
LikeLike
Yes. I’ve found there are great arguments on both sides, with equally compelling cases. And yet I choose Him, even by a tiny shred of faith.
LikeLike
I have often heard this argument that God does not exist otherwise he would not allow the world to be in such a horrible state. But the problem is that He has given us the Free Will and He will never touch that. And this makes sense because if He would continuously interfere we would be nothing but puppets. We are allowed to do wrong, even to do horrible things, but we have to bear the consequences of our actions.
But if we turn to God and we give up our own Free Will in complete surrender to His Will, when we allow Him to take over, and accept whatever He gives us, even if we do not like it in the first moment, than we can experience His Powers, His Love, and His Miracles. The more I understood this the more miracles I experienced. Maybe not earthshaking ones, maybe just small ones, but still miracles. I may never be able to prove that to atheists, but I do not need to. To have the experience myself is daily proof for me and it makes my life rich and beautiful. I wish it for everyone else, too.
LikeLike
The Bible (and Jesus quotes it) says to love God with all our heart, soul and mind (Deut. 6:5). Why do we let our thinking dominate our other ways of experiencing life? As a trained academic I have to stay vigilant. I keep coming back to, “I would rather experience Jesus than understand Christ”.
Peace
LikeLike