To Believe Or Not To Believe? That Is The Question!

The license-plate in front of me yesterday read: DON’T BELIV.  That is what the owner of that car wanted the world to know about him or her.  

A very clear message!

We are all given that choice!  At least those of us who have been raise in a home that entertained discussions on religion.  And even saying that!  There are those who have not been exposed to any sort of religious environment in their lives. And yet, have come to believe. Those folks are often introduced to the subject though school and/or social connections.  

The truth, as I believe it, is that God is available and present to all people.  And I am quite sure that most people  develop a sense of a “higher-being” at some point in their lives.

But always, always, the choice, to believe or not, is an individual choice. 

What I am extremely, sometimes painfully, aware of is that thousands — maybe millions and billions — of people are challenged by the questions. Questions about whatever it is that bothers them, or troubles, them about the reality of God.  And most especially Jesus!  And they don't know where to go to get answers.

About eleven years ago one of the Confirmation students came to my office on night with a huge concern.  He sat down, fumbled with his fingers for a time, and then said:  “Pastor Marcia, I have a problem believing in Jesus.  I don’t have a problem believing in God.  But Jesus is a problem for me.”  That student’s quandary, was the same concern, that eventually formed of a denomination called the “Universal Brotherhood of Man” — better known as Unitarians  Those who don’t buy into the Jesus part of the story.

Other factions of our population, here in the United States and probably other countries,  have been exposed to a theology that in many ways by-passes the grace brought to earth with the coming of Jesus.  They have remained in the Old Testament theology.  A theology that preaches hell-fire-and-damnation. The terrifying wrath of God!  Many of those people have turned completely away from any form of the institutional church.

However!  That doesn’t mean that they don’t believe!  They still wonder!  They still search for a kinder, more loving, higher-being.  The one who is supposedly “love!”

Then there are those like my own daughters, and many others under the age of fifty, who choose to move through life with faith without the institution-church.  Does that trouble me?  It use to!  But what matters is that they believe in God.  They just are not appreciative of how the Institutional-church, and the church members, have witnessed and models the truth of Jesus Christ.  

All of these examples are of how God is, or is not, woven into the fabric of a person’s life.  It only show us that we live in a diverse world.  A world were we have the freedom — at least in the United States — to choose what we believe.  

No buts!

Do I wish that all people could grasp the grace and love that Jesus came to teach the human ego?  Yes, of-course!  But, like Jesus, I cannot force someone to believe. And I won’t!