Believe..

“Believers”, that’s what we have come to be known as over the years. It’s a unique way to identify ourselves. And it’s a good way too. We are believers, and that’s ok. Though the question that might follow is, what are we believing?(and what does that mean?)

When I was a child in Sunday school, I believed that Jesus died for me. That he saved me. That my sins were washed away. That God wanted me to henceforth live a better life, one in which I didn’t sin (deliberately or not). That I had to do good. That I had to read my Bible and pray every day (if I wanted to grow). That I needed faith in him. There is a heaven waiting for me etc. I had many bible examples to learn from how to be an Abel and not a Cain.

I am a man now, and I still believe that Jesus died for me, that I’m saved, my sins are washed away, I’ve been called to a higher life, that God will see me through every situation. There’s a heaven waiting for me etc.

When I was a child, in lower school, I learnt that 0 minus 1 was impossible. I also learnt about equations and formulas. At that level it was enough to cram these equations. But when I got to higher levels, I realised that it was not enough to know an equation, I had to know how to derive it. Zero minus 1 was possible. It was not enough to know Newton’s laws and the equations that followed, I had to know how to arrive at that equation from first principles. The scale and depth of what I knew as a child was stretched to a level that was inconceivable to the me- child.

In school I also had to pass an exam. I had to be somewhere by a certain time and by a certain age. I had a curriculum and a syllabus. And with that came a timetable and timelines. By a certain grade I was expected to know certain things. It didn’t matter how long I stayed in school, what mattered was how well (and fast) I grasped these concepts – promotion was based on the latter not the former. We eventually graduated, and mastering has not ceased.

But I’m a believer…

My experience has been that while in my natural (school) life I had all these classes and concepts to study and understand. In my believing life, the scale of information and concepts in comparison to my other life has not been at par in terms of depths and complexities. There is a gap in contemporaries. I was told to have faith then and I’m still taught the same now. The wording and presentation might have changed but the concept is still the same. The depths and complexities by virtue of advancing in levels seem scarce. Or it’s just me?

I love science, I love space. I have many questions but NASA.gov seems a more likely source of answers than God.(the one usually preached) And don’t get me wrong but when was the last time we heard or came across a space-related teaching/lecture/exposition delivered from or by an ordained minister. One might argue that it doesn’t fit the pulpit bill but I might ask, for these geniuses at NASA, SpaceX and ivy league universities that are digging deep into dark matter, how do we expect to catch their attention by simply asking them to believe? They are spending billions in time and research to put up telescopes that are looking at light from the past and analysing it in hope of understanding how the universe came to be. How do we justify our faith for them? How would we expect them to a follow a so-called creator that is numb about the thing that excites them the most.

Pick a field and critically think about it. You’ll realise that things become deeper, more refined and specialised as you study further into it. It’s the progression of this world. I’m not of this world I might say, but I’m in it.

A lot comes to mind when I think about that statement, I am a believer. What am I believing?

On the other hand, somehow, this statement has made us more ‘believers’ than doers. It’s like we pray or believe God for something and as good faithful people we leave the process and workings to God. I mean the Spirit that overshadowed Mary will also overshadow our situations after all we have a saying..God works in mysterious ways!

But is it so?

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. NKJV Isa 55:8-9

Hmmm but but …wait …
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. NKJV 1Co 2:10-12

Context matters!! In Isaiah he was not addressing believers. He was not addressing a righteous people filled with the Holy Spirit. To the “new testament” believer Paul addresses the God working in mysterious ways myth. He that searches the deep things of God dwells in us. Therefore not knowing the will of God is more of a choice and not a default setting. We choose not to know not that it’s unknowable but that it never occurred to us to search it out because we believed that what Isaiah wrote was addressed to us.

There’s a child in my house. There’s a time when it was ok for this child to be oblivious to our plans and workings within the house. But as this child is growing up, part of the growing up is her learning how things work at home. It’s her learning that as she grows up dishes left at the counter cease to clean themselves. That the living room has a way it’s supposed to look. That TV is not like air, available all the time. After a while she must know how to make her breakfast without asking where what is. She must know how shoes are cleaned and stored. As she grows up, it’s her realizing that she’s no longer a passive observer and benefactor of the mysterious ways in which things happen. Rather she has a part to play and contribute to how things are happening.

I’m a believer – what does it really mean? What’s the curriculum? Am I where I’m supposed to be? By this time, do I know what I’m supposed to know? Am I doing what’s commensurate with my level?

Photo by Samuel Girven on Unsplash