Space For Doubt

I guess I lied.

In a previous post I said I didn’t I have any control over what I believe. There is a single solitary exception to this, I think.

When my house of cards came tumbling down a few years ago, I reached a bit of low point. I was asking myself, at this rate, will I even believe in God in a few more years?

The thought of facing this question was terrifying. What would that mean for me, my family, or the point of life in the first place?

When the dust had started to settle, my previously described two pillars remained. That the world was a place that had to have been created by an intelligent designer. Just no question there. And that, on balance, the evidence supported Jesus’ historicity well enough to retain that too.

There I was, left with those pillars but still floundering a bit. How can a good and loving God watch the world burn, watch people suffer, and seemingly sit back and do nothing? If there was a God, and I believed there was, His concept of what love and suffering are must differ greatly from my own.

I realized in that moment I did indeed have a choice that I could actually make.

In my mind there were two God’s.

1.) A God with an infinite capacity to love. One who loves everyone equally. Who does not dole out punishments for doubt. Who, while perhaps having a different concept of love and suffering than my own, or having a grand overarching plan that requires pain to be present in life, WILL save everyone. Every. Single. Person. The LGBTQ, the psychopathic murderer, the serial liar…..everyone.

A God that will save everyone, because He knows that people lack the ability to make good decisions (more on this later). He knows we lack the ability to just willy-nilly believe whatever we want. He gave us free will, but humans are often not afforded the option to exercise it freely, or are mentally incapacitated in some way (indoctrination, stress, medical issues, genetics, learning disabilities) to be able to exercise it properly.

Or…..

2.) God is some version of the type of God many conservative evangelicals like to preach of. A vengeful and hate filled God, ready to bring wrath up on those who disbelieve. A God who cares nothing for those who doubt, those who do not follow the biblical rules. A God ready to send to hell (or for SDA’s, deny eternal life) those who oppose, disbelieve, or otherwise do not follow his commands to a “T”.

Didn’t ask for forgiveness? That’s no eternal life for you. Oh you were lesbian? Yep, no eternal life for you. You were indoctrinated into radical Islam and were killed in battle? No eternal life for you. You grew up with atheist parents in Denmark, were a remarkably kind and loving person, but never believed in me? Yep, no eternal life for you either.

A God that despite a lifetime of attempting to follow Him, would likely NOT save me because of my doubts of faith and my lack of belief. Beliefs that I believe are outside of my control. A God that seemingly only would save a very narrow slice of humanity.

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So I made my choice.

I was convinced there HAD to be a God, and since He therefore exists, it would be God #1 that I would seek and serve.

If God was some version of #2, I reasoned I would not want any part of that God. My life will revolve around God #1, and should I die and find the other God there, I would happily accept my fate. That is a God I will not serve.

I am choosing to believe in a God that loves in ways that I cannot fathom. Who has a capacity to handle His created people in a way that chooses love first, every time. Who can have space for my doubts. Who understands our limited ability to choose Him.

It’s either that, or what’s the point of any of it all? If I’m going to wind up with God #2 at the end of the road, I may as well be an atheist who gives up striving to know God at all…because I don’t want to know Him.

Nothing else but this has felt like a choice. I suppose I could be convinced even this isn’t a choice per se.

Imagine I gave you two roads to choose in life. A road filled with love and wonder, or a road filled with uncertainty, stress, and judgement. You still have a choice right? But is it really a choice you have to consciously make? Is it really a choice at all?

Peace.