Christianity

I remember crying during a Christian camp years ago. When asked why, I replied that I cried because everyone else was crying. And it was true. I was desperately trying to squeeze out tears just to blend in and pretty stoked that I managed to. I pictured a loved one dying.
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Everyone laughed at my reply, but I suspect that I wasn’t the only one who cried to blend in, or at least tried to look as sombre as possible. It is easy to go with the flow, without realising for oneself the profoundness of what Jesus did. It is easy to pretend to be an outward Christian, just because to turn away from that is to alienate your friends whom you grew up with. It is easy to be a Christian only when you are surrounded by Christians, and hide one’s convictions when you are surrounded by non-Christians. Like a chameleon, changing one’s colours according to the background. Trying hard not to stand out.
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It is easy to do all that when you don’t realise for yourself that God is true.
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I’ve wondered sometimes, how president Obama can be a Christian. I mean, he must be one of the smartest people in the world right? How can he believe in something so irrational as Jesus? To believe not only that there is a God, but that he send his son (whom is Him also, try working that out) to die to pay the sins of the world so that we might be sinless? What kind of brainwashed idiot would believe in that? For a long time, deep down, so deep that I can ignore it most times, I doubted that Christianity is true.
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I’ve often prayed to God that if he is true, would he please just tell me that in a clear voice that I can instantly recognise as his, or send an angel to appear right now in front of me. When I was younger, I put my hands over my short-sighted eyes and told God to give me perfect vision again. None of that happened. So I stopped praying. I stopped praying for my parents and my brother and my friends, because I doubted if God existed.
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Coming to New Zealand and being part of christian fellowship forced me to wrestle with my doubts. At times, I feel convicted that God is true. At times, I doubted. I am thankful for the opportunities I’ve had to express my doubts and not be shot down with a routine ‘go read the bible’ or ‘you need to pray more’ reply, or be met with a shocked ‘you infidel!’ expression. Honestly, responses like these only encourage Christians to stop thinking about why they believe what they do. When the rest of the world is thinking, how can we afford not to? 1 Peter 3:15: “… Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have…”
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Although part of believing involves God’s spirit working through us, a stronger conviction requires it to be rationally possible, at least, for the Christian God to be true. I know for me it does. Because I cannot believe in something that has a 0% chance of existing. Why don’t I just jump off a cliff instead and believe that something will save me?

.To come to the conclusion that the Christian God can be true, I’ve wrestled with questions such as:
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Is there a God? Is this God the same one as the one proclaimed in the Bible? Is the Bible true? Did Jesus really exist? Did he and his disciples speak the truth? Like Buz said, there is no reason to assume that Peter and the other writers of the Bible weren’t as intellectual as we are now. Some of these writers saw and knew Jesus personally, and even died horrendously because they knew that Jesus was true.
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To be honest, I am still grappling with some issues, as any thinking Christian should be. But I know the basics of Christianity to be true, from thinking rationally about it and being convicted by the Spirit.
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I came back from student leadership camp last week, feeling refreshed and renewed in my faith.
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One lesson from SLC is contained in Psalm 23. God is sovereign. What Nigel said is true. To worry is to sin, for then we stop placing our trust in God. My future is in God’s hands, and deep down, I know his plans for me can only be good, even if it involves some suffering and hardship here and there.
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Another lesson is that of having an undivided life. To be a Christian is to be a Christian all the time, not just in church. And when you know the truth of the gospel, how can you compartmentalise your life? The joy of salvation cannot be contained.
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I’m writing this down so that I can come back to it when doubts haunt me again. Also, I hope it encourages those who are struggling with their faith to not be afraid of expressing that doubt and to take steps towards resolving them. Like Andy prayed after his talk, I hope that anything I’ve wrote which is not from God is erased from your minds, and that which is from God remains forever.