I am fond of telling others that God is sovereign, but I am actually telling myself. I have heard many sermons that have told me in one way or another, God is never surprised. One of my favorite passages in Romans tell us that all things work together for good for those love God and are called according to His purposes. I can still say and believe that God loves me, even at times like these when it is so easy to cry--"Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?"--our Lord's cry from the cross. I draw comfort from the fact that my beloved Savior knows in Himself, in the very Godhead, the very human feeling of being abandoned by God. Romans 8 may be the most sublime chapter in the entire Bible. Yes, I do cry "Abba, Father!", and I will trust that this cry is the Holy Spirit bearing witness with me that I am a child of God.
I haven't always been able to speak this way, which is scary. The deeper my faith becomes, the more and more I view the world in a very black or white perspective. Either all that Holy Scripture teaches us is utterly true or the strict secularists are right and we are utterly alone. If the latter is the case, then everything about us is just some random accident and our lives, no matter how good or bad, have no meaning. There are only two honest alternatives: Christianity or nihilism--all other philosophies or belief systems are man-made and delusional.
I cannot, not believe. Even when my doubts are strongest and part of me longs to surrender to the Nothing, I still believe, I still pray. It's easy to wonder, to honestly question whether our Faith, all faith isn't just the human psyche screaming at the Long Night. If compassion and charity are human constructs, and this is the age of deconstructionism, then they are subject to discard the very moment they get in the way of living one's life in the most self-serving and hedonistic manner. I don't understand why a true atheist would live a moral or ethical life. If I truly believed there was absolutely no God, then I would live whatever life I could in order to achieve the maximum amount of pleasure and endure the minimal amount of pain. When I had enough, I would check out at the time of my own choosing and on my own terms. Whether it's 17 years or 70, in the end you're still dead. Show me an atheist who is genuinely compassionate and charitable and I'll show you someone who is very superficial and shallow with themselves. They are a conundrum of self-delusion.
So, here I am, in the midst of the worst time of my entire life, looking at the only two cosmic world views that an honest, thinking human being can assent to, and again I say: I cannot, not believe. Even doing my best to factor in the sound notion that we human beings have invented God to make sense out of a senseless, meaningless universe, I still cannot, not believe.....and believe me I have tried. I spent the first 15 years of my adult life in connecting the dots from an agnostic point of view to the notion of some type of "higher power". Once you get to the point that there is a creator, One Creator, whose attribute is to disclose his/her/itself to his/her/its creation, then the dots start lining up and pointing in one direction. The fact that millions, billions of human being have believed and believe other faith systems or other philosophies is in the end irrelevant to me.
I have sought Truth all my life, I have always been a Truthseeker. I have always capitalized "Truth"; I believe in the very core of my being, my essence that there is an Absolute Truth that rules our lives and the cosmos. And that is why I cannot, not believe. I have come to a place where I know and believe that Truth has a name, that He is a person. I have put my faith, my hope and my trust in Jesus and His word that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. As St. Peter once said, there is no one else to whom we can go. For it is in Jesus' words that we find the words of eternal life.
So here I sit, at this juncture in my life, confused and doubting. Yet, I believe in God and I believe that God loves me and all things in scripture teach us what it means when we are loved by God. My emotional state is bordering on hopelessness and depression. I feel overwhelmed with all that is happening to me, to my husband, to my family and to a beloved child in mind, body and estate. I do cry--Eli, Eli....which is the same as crying "Abba, Father!" Almighty Father, protect your servants from the evil of this day. O Lord, make speed to save us, O God make haste to help us. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be, world without end. Amen.
