This guest post is from Eduardo "Bart" Navas, Regent Law 2L and current Wills, Trusts, & Estates student:
Belief is a scary thing. What if it turns out not to be true? Even when I was an atheist I felt this deeply, that if I did believe that God really exists then that would mean that I believe that ultimately, everything is going to be okay in the end. That all the hurt and suffering that my loved ones and I experienced would one day go away in a world where everyone loves and forgives each other. But the moment I write this I already experience some push back within myself. Some part of me will always say: that’s just too good to be true Bart. I scold myself: “Believing that is just too dangerous, I could really get hurt”. And in a way, it is dangerous, because believing things that seem too good to be true, like the notion of finding happiness again after the death of my young cousin, or to believe that I could love the same way again after sincerely believing that my past relationship with my ex would last, brings up the same hurt that made me not want to believe in things like love and happiness anymore. Because such beliefs are scary, and without fully being aware of it, my heart withdrew. I starting loving in a measured way. And when someone loved me in return, or when happiness came my way, I put my guard up as if to say, “I know better.” I guess I’m saying all this to say, thinking back, my atheism really just was a fear of believing.
Put in this way, some of the time, a lot of us are atheists. Unbelief is a sin just like any other sin after all. And just like any other sin it is something that can be resisted. Why not believe that the thing you desire most in your heart of hearts could possibly come true; that heaven is real; that someone out there does, in fact, love you? What I notice about myself in these situations is that sometimes I find myself unable to receive. It was a hard truth for me to consider that giving love is easy, but receiving love is hard. Even though that is no longer something I beat myself up too much about anymore, it is a very real reason why I still go to church and why I chose a Christian school like Regent to guide me through this stage of my life.
For I used to believe that my life as I knew it with all my dreams and goals ended once I was diagnosed with depression from all the hurt I could not deal with many years ago, but after God found me in that pit and I went to Regent, things actually started getting better, beyond what I could have asked or imagined. My family is happier, my heart is healing, and I have never felt more loved and understood.
I guess I don’t know better after all. But He does.
No comments:
Post a Comment