I’ve said it before, even right here on this blog, but I’ll say it again. At some point in your life, if you claim to really believe all this crazy stuff about Jesus, you have to actually face it. In facing it, you will be unable to avoid this simple truth: either Jesus was who he said he was, or he wasn’t. Either the Bible’s true, or it’s not. There isn’t a whole lot of room for middle ground.
If it’s all true, then there’s no point in paying it lip service but not actually changing your life. In fact, that would be kind of stupid. It would be equally stupid to call yourself a believer and devote your life to self-sacrifice if none of it’s true. Talk all you want about how “noble” that would be or how “nice”. If it ultimately accomplishes nothing, what’s the point?
But if it’s true…
The thing is, even if you believe it’s true, it’s terribly scary stuff, devoting your life to God. This is true for the same reason that a child (or an adult) is afraid of the dark. It isn’t the dark we fear—it’s the unknown.
Following God is full of the unknown. He’s unknown, himself. We know but a fraction of who or what he is. (Be suspicious of anyone who claims to understand God. No one does.) His ways are mysterious, and that was true even before Bono sang about it. If you do follow him, God only knows where he’ll lead you or what you’ll end up doing.
The point is, you don’t know. You can’t. A future with God is frought with the unknown.
Recently I was watching a TV show with my wife and we saw a male character enter into a dark and dangerous room. She tensed and told him not to go in. He didn’t listen, though, and went right on in anyway. This show was not a horror and he was the hero, so naturally, he was fine. Afterwards, she turned to me and asked, “Do guys get afraid in those situations?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said.
“Then how do they do that? How do you go into a place when you know there could be danger?”
“Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I mean, I’ve been scared before but I knew there was something I had to do. It’s probably like that.”
Faith is probably like that, too. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, even though it scares you. In fact, I’d say faith is like that more often than not. If you’re not scared sometimes, you’re probably doing it wrong.
