In earlier posts I have shared my testimonies of how I came to faith and Christianity. And one common theme that is still present in my life is that I am still on the journey of Faith and being a Jesus follower.
As I have shared before I was exposed to the word of God at a very young age, but it was not until much later in life that that exposure would come to fruition. After more than 2 decades of being an unbeliever, and even a persecutor of God and the Bible, no one was more surprised than I was when I became a believer.
I have always been a very analytical person, a rational, realist, and free thinker. There was a time that I honestly thought that there was no real way to reconcile the Bible with what I knew about science and fact. And the sad truth is that there are many believers today who have the same issue. The issue that I didn’t know I had at the time was that I was ignorant, and because I was ignorant, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
I started my Faith Journey at the age of 26, but even now after more than 15 years of being a believer, I am still on that same journey. And I honestly don't think it will end until the day that I go home to be with the Father. The day that all my questions will be answered, if I even still care to consider those questions once I am face to face with Him.
My faith has journey has been a bumpy road at best, filled with more potholes and detours than I would like to admit, but such is life as an imperfect person. There was a time that I though once I believed, everything else would just fall into place. But as any believer knows that was my wishful thinking that life would just get easy and then poof, I'd be with Jesus and all would be well. The last 15 years have been anything but easy, especially in my Faith, but one thing has remained through it all. God has been there with me through every single flat tire and detour, and He has been the same no matter where I was or who I was. He has been faithful and loving no matter if I was or not. You see once I started to feel the Holy Spirit move in my life, I began to feel convicted of certain things in my life, and then of course the very next thing was doubt. Why did doubt so easily creep in and why so early you may ask? Well because as I said earlier, I am a realist, and analytical person who derives everything from fact and reason. So, when who I am as a person began to collide with my newfound Faith, it began to cause doubt, and made me wonder if what I was feeling was just a manipulation of my emotions based on that wishful thinking. And when those hopes didn't come through, now all the sudden I was faced with the question, is this real, or is this just my sub-conscious trying to find an escape or perhaps even just my empathy consuming me from the people I was around at the time. It wasn’t until later that I learned where the gift of being an empath came from, but that's another story. I had spent so much time in life declaring that the Bible couldn't possibly be true simply because there was no science to support it, and as far as I was concerned if the Bible was real then there would be PROOF. I could not and would not take my Faith by FAITH. And because of this I began to detour and make choices in my life contrary to what I knew to be right, but He never abandoned me. There came a point that I needed more, and in my youth when I came to this place, I chose to seek it elsewhere rather than in God, but this time was different. I honestly cannot tell you what it was other than to say that God knew it was my time and He was not going to let up until I got to the place, He wanted me to be. So, a bit at a time I began to dig into the doubt I was dealing with in addition to the Faith I wanted to have so desperately and the conviction I was so clearly feeling. Because I was not comfortable taking Faith by Faith, I needed more than the Bible; now I realize to many believers this may sound odd, but to a nonbeliever and skeptic this is perfectly rational. Believing the Bible is the Word of God required more evidence for me than simply I believe it because the Bible says it. For me that seemed a bit circular in reasoning and made absolutely no sense. And even the emotional things I was experiencing could be rationalized away with rather simple explanations. I simply needed concreate proof that my Faith was real, and I was not losing my mind. Of all the research I have done and continue to do over the years, I will say that Author Lee Strobel has probably been one of my biggest sources. I do not have the background or training to find the material that I was looking for, and frankly I was struggling to know where to look. Lee's first book, The Case for Christ had been made into a motion picture before I even knew who he was or that there was a book. But it was in that very book that I began to see and find the evidence I had been looking for. There it was all laid out for me in the analytical way that I was looking for, the science, the cosmology, the archeology, and the anthropology, with names, dates, and information I could search and verify for myself. Over about the next year or so I dove into the next 3 books that Lee wrote of the Case for series, and each book I found the same as the one before. I was able to search and verify each professional or specialist and the evidence they offered.
It was at this point that the bigger picture began to take shape for me, and it was at this point that my Faith really began to take shape and grow. I had spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I should believe, then all the sudden there it was. Arthur Canan Doyal said "once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." And that is where I was, all the facts, evidence, and truth that I could find supported that the Bible is in fact the truth, and that Jesus is exactly who He said He is.
Robert Bolton said, "A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind." And this is where I have been ever since.
Now that is not to say that I am not still on my faith journey, and still failing to always do what I should, but we are as human. I feel the call of God at different times and places in my life, and I am still learning that even when He reveals something to me, it doesn't mean that the thing will happen right away. Sometimes He may reveal to you a direction He wants you to go in for your benefit, so that we may be looking for it. Perhaps there will be opportunities for you to minister to someone along the way to where He wants you go that you might otherwise miss. Perhaps He wants to show you what He can and will do through you in your Faithfulness. But we will only know if we follow Him and Obey.
This doesn’t mean I don’t still have questions, or that I will always be able to find all the answers, but it does mean that I know enough to be content in where I am.
The Facts, Evidence, and irrefutable Truth is what my Faith stands on, and as such I feel like I have become a better soldier for Christ than I could have ever been otherwise.
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