I once had enough faith in myself to believe there was no God. I had enough of that self-centered faith to believe the entire universe sprang from a Big Bang. I could believe that Big Bang came from an unbelievably dense unbelievably small point that for some unexplained reason suddenly exploded. I could believe that after the explosion this unbelievably dense unbelievably small point expanded into everything that is. I could believe that everything that is now expanding would eventually stop expanding and then contract back into that unbelievably dense unbelievably small point that would then eventually explode again and the entire process would happen again over and over from eternity to eternity. Yes, I had enough self-centered faith to believe all that.
I blindly accepted what scientist told me was verifiable evidence that all this was physically true. I never once asked myself any of these obvious questions: How could anyone possibly know that this had ever happened before? How could anyone possibly know that it would happen again? How could anyone possibly know where the unbelievably dense unbelievably small point came from? Or better yet, what made this self-existing unbelievably dense unbelievably small point explode?
Without asking any of these important questions I could believe all that without ever contemplating the fact that chaos breeds chaos it does not breed the complex organization that we observe in reality from atom to Adam. Or, as the Second Law of Thermodynamics puts it the entropy of any isolated system always increases.
In other words, the odds of a tornado hitting a junk yard and leaving a fully assembled 747 in its wake are less than zero. And to have order come from chaos on a universal scale would mean that that would have to happen billions upon billions of times. Which flies in the face of something I learned back during the Hippie commune days, no matter how many times you multiply zero it is still zero.
But I had faith! Without blinking an eye I was proud to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Everything came from one itsy bitsy piece of who knows what that existed from eternity to eternity exploding into everything and the shrinking back to an itsy bitsy piece of who knows what over and over. Sure that made sense but a loving God who created everything that was too far out to believe.
Jesus tells us that we have to come to the end of ourselves if we want to walk with Him. We have to realize that anyone who intends to come with Him has to let Him lead. We’re not in the driver’s seat; He is. We shouldn’t run from suffering we should embrace it. Follow Him and He’ll show us how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, His way, to finding ourselves, our true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything we want but lose ourselves? What could we ever trade our soul for? He said those who seek to hold on to everything will lose everything and those who let go of everything will gain everything.
When I first started trying to live this kind of life I thought of it as learning to walk backwards because it was the opposite of everything I had ever been taught on how to succeed.
When some people see another walking in faith following Christ sacrificing themselves for others they say, “Wow! They have such great faith.”
To be sure to follow Jesus takes faith but even that faith is a gift from God. God gives each of us a measure of faith and we should think seriously about that and follow that faith into the good works He’s given us to do.
So while it takes God given faith to follow Jesus it takes faith in ourselves to be an atheist. I praise God that in my life the faith gift of God overwhelmed my own faith in me. When I look at all the dead ends my choices led me to and compare that to the fulfilling and joyful life I have found following Him and I can see that He has a better way.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2018 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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