"You Just Have to Choose to Believe"

I don't actually believe that belief is a choice. Even the Bible is (not very) clear on this. Let's go back to a bible verse I referenced last week:

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves;

it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast." 

Ephesians 2:8-9

According to this verse, you did not choose to have faith. You did nothing. God graciously gave faith to you. Still don't believe me? Check the list of gifts of the Spirit starting with 1 Corinthians 12:8. Faith is mentioned specifically in verse 9.

So, even by Christian doctrine, one can't just choose to have faith. God chooses whether you will believe or not, which determines whether you will go to Hell or not. Your fate is entirely in his hands. You can do absolutely nothing about it, even if you wanted to.

Think I'm just taking the Bible out of context? Think you can still choose what you believe in? Let's have a simple test to see whether you really can or not.

Shut the door to your bathroom so you can't peak inside of it. Now, try choosing to believe that there's an elephant standing in the center of it. He's a very gentle, quiet elephant, so you can't hear him. But, don't worry, he's in there. Choose to believe it with all your heart. Have faith in the elephant in the bathroom!

You didn't really believe there was an elephant standing in your bathroom, did you? Even if you wanted to?

Of course not, that's not how belief works. If you don't have sufficient reason to believe in something, you won't believe in it. You can trick yourself all day into believing that something is rational, but subconsciously, your brain will nag at you to correct the faulty reasoning. It'll urge you to check for evidence, to open the door and see if the elephant is really there.

This is the real reason why you have doubts.

Likewise, it was not by choice that I stopped believing, either. It just happened naturally; gradually, as I learned more and more, as I spent time researching, trying to find extra-biblical evidence for God, or even Jesus for that matter. The more I found (or didn't find), the more I doubted. It happened so slowly that I didn't even realize I no longer believed until I was sitting through a sermon series on hearing God's voice.

The pastor spoke about how there are many different spirits that will try to talk to you and invade your thoughts, and how many of these things we hear might appear right, but in the end lead to death. He then went on to explain how to distinguish the still small voice that really did come from God.

His first point was that it had to line up with God's word. But wait a minute, I thought, Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses didn't have the Bible, yet they seemed capable of speaking to God as if his voice was clear as day. How is that even possible?

The pastor went on to make several other points, too. For instance, a message from God should make us more Christ-like. Because, you know, the first filter still leaves a lot to be desired. At least now we can rule out the chances of God asking us to stone someone to death or incite a genocide. God asking us to brandish a whip at church and start turning over tables was still in the realm of possibilities, however.

The next point was that your Christian role-models should agree with the God-given message. I guess that would be just in case we actually need someone to talk us out of brandishing a whip at church and turning over tables.

And last, it should bring you peace. It appears that Jonah was probably mistaken, then, about God asking him to go to Nineveh.

The pastor also taught about how to go about hearing from God. For the most part, it involved spending a lot of time in a quiet place, reading the bible and praying. However, I thought, if I spent an excessive amount of time dwelling on the bible, my brain would just automatically start regurgitating biblical phrases in response to my questions. It wouldn't be much different from how my brain spits out song lyrics if I watch too many kids' shows.

The more the pastor spoke, the more I realized how silly it was that I had once believed I had heard the voice of God. With all these restrictions, it would be a wonder God could even speak at all. Apparently, all he could really do is mimic old Bible verses which remind people to be more like Jesus and put them at ease. If people often hear things that land outside of these boundaries, why should we jump to the assumption that something that finally does land within the lines equates a word from God? It could just as easily be explained away as a subconscious thought which just happened to say the right thing, after multiple failed attempts.

I concluded then that the small-voice-that-I-once-rationalized-as-God wasn't necessarily God. The one I wrote about earlier, which had told me to "repent" all those years ago, and to go to Alabaster, Alabama of all places. It could almost certainly have been my mind playing with alliteration and repeating things that I would subconsciously assume God would say to me. Things such as "no" to the things that I actually wanted. Because that's what I had imagined God to be like.

But, if God really does exist, and can speak to us, why is it always with a small, subtle voice, hardly distinguishable from our own thoughts? If God is really the loving father like people say, why does he limit the way he communicates with us to such extremes? Surely, if my kids were endangering themselves or others and in need of discipline, I wouldn't just whisper quietly in the next room and wait until they stopped what they were doing to draw near enough to hear me. I would make myself heard.

Why should we expect any less from an omnipotent, loving God?

Previous | First | Next