Spiritual Reflections, Part 2

So, much of my journey here has been a journey of faith, and of getting to learn more about the God I claim belief in. And I realize that I have among my friends and family those who share my beliefs and those who do not, and I respect all of you equally. But I wanted a place to share these reflections, and I thought instead of creating a separate space, that I would intersperse them here on this blog under the heading “Spiritual Reflections”. I am careful not to force my beliefs or opinions on people, so if this is not what you were looking for from my details of Africa, feel free to skip over these entries. For those who choose to read on, I welcome comments, debate, correction, insights, etc. It is all a journey of learning who we are, and who God is, and I welcome and value your thoughts. Peace and love to all of you.



Godonomics (term borrowed from Todd Cantelon), or Why believe in Eternity?

As many of you may or may not know, one of the biggest influences in my decision to become a follower of Christ was a roommate talking about eternity. He brought up Pascal’s wager, which is something to the effect of: the risk in believing in God and eternity and being wrong is relatively small. The risk in not believing and being wrong is very large.” This got me to thinking, since I had never really thought about eternity before, but somehow seemed to instantly not doubt that it existed. And if there is eternal union with God or eternal separation from God (ie heaven and hell) it seems an easy choice for me. But why believe in eternity? It’s a question of faith. And the thing is, it’s not a question of whether or not you have faith, but a question of what you have faith in? Todd has defined faith as “Believing in the unseen, and acting irreversibly upon that unseen belief.” The author of the book of Hebrews has defined it as “Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.” I have often noted that I believe an important element of faith is being able to say with comfort and confidence that we don’t know. There are many things we just don’t know about. Some things we can find out about by researching, or through science, or through discovery. Like how atoms work, how plants grow, what Africa is really like, etc. Other things, we can’t determine by any method that I know of. What will happen tomorrow, or at any point in the future. What will happen after we die. There are certain wonders of this earth that I’m not sure science can yet explain, but I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know which category these fall into. I need to put my faith in the scientists, and that their findings and interpretation are correct.

Anyhow, for everything we don’t know about, faith is required. So the question is, what do you put your faith in? Look at what you know, and what you think is going to happen, and that will tell you what you have faith in. Until I came here, my knowledge of what Africa is like was limited to what I could read about, hear about, or see on TV. I need to rely on the honesty and objectivity of these sources in order to have faith that what they are saying is correct. I personally often have little faith in other people, so I am not prone to follow Todd’s definition and act upon things I learn. But everything we do requires faith. When you drive through a green light, you are taking it on faith that other people are going to be obedient to red lights, that their cars don’t have brake failures, etc. When you eat food, you have faith that it was handled properly, that it hasn’t been poisoned, that it won’t kill you. I could give countless examples, but you get the idea.

So, why have faith in eternity? Why have faith in something none of us can prove? Well, I don’t think it takes much more faith to trust eternity than it does to have faith in tomorrow. Are you saving for retirement? If so, then on some level you believe that you are going to live until you retire. At least, you are believing that there is a possibility that you will live that long, and if you do, you want to be prepared for it. Well, this is what we are commanded to do as Christians, except we are commanded to store up treasures in heaven where they do not rust and disappear, as opposed to storing up treasures on earth, where moths eat them up or they rust away. So making sacrifices for the sake of the Kingdom is like saving for retirement. Now I acknowledge the main flaw in this argument. You believe in tomorrow because you’ve seen it happen before. You believe in retirement because you’ve seen people live that long in the past. But I believe that there is no more assurance of tomorrow than there is of eternity. So I have faith. And because I believe that the principles of Christianity on the whole lead to a more fulfilling life, even on earth, then my risk of believing and being wrong is that I’ll have lived a better life. Maybe I’ll skip a few things I think I would have liked to do. But this is no greater than what I give up to save for retirement. We all make sacrifices based on what we think will be of greatest benefit. Most of us make decisions based on immediate satisfaction or short term gain, and many times these decisions end up hurting us in the long term. Now if there is life beyond my time on earth, and my decisions have eternal consequences, it puts a greater price on short term satisfaction. In light of eternity, decisions change. In light of eternity, I strive to live, doing my best to serve God by serving here on earth and helping those in need. I don’t know much about how to do this, but I hope and strive to learn and grow, day by day, year by year.