in sum of my experiences, i grew to be this skeptic who didn't see love around as much as i would have liked to, wanted to love, got tired of loving, got tired of the mainstream idea of love (i don't subscribe very well to the idea of love being kept within the nucleus family). i felt like i volunteered to feel good about myself, and that very idea disgusted me. i wanted to give because i wanted others to benefit as a result, not to fulfill the human ego. i definitely wasn't any saint. i was a self-righteous prick who had her share of arguments with people just to win them, and pride consumed me sometimes and turned me so into a creature of hate. i was jaded and disgusted with myself and the world around me.
i liked myself as a thinker, someone rational and logical, due to influence from a father who subscribed to analytical thinking and humanism in his approach to life. the human life is as we see it- causes and consequences occurred as a result of nothing but a trigger of a chain of events. and nothing more than that. perhaps, it was believed that anything above human understanding or what couldn't be explained by science wasn't our onus. whatever it was, that subject was never broached in our years of discussion about religion.
"organised religion and its chaos, i don't wanna be a part of it"
"these poisonous righteous people, what makes them think they know what truth is in this world? imposing their beliefs and causing such bloodbath.""er, i can never have so much faith in unseen, and the unexplainable. it's for the people who can't help themselves, thanks."
all that were fences of apathy i built to distance myself from the sufferings and evils of the world. i knew they existed, but at the same time, i didn't wanna take any stand. i ignored the fact that the truth existed somewhere, and that i needed to find out what that was. as c.s. lewis said,
"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."
so there i was, clouded by the deceptive nature of education that i was taught my whole life to place my trust only in things that one could see, feel and touch, and there and then, i was at 20, having been to places and met people, the whole world at my feet, feeling like there was more to life than working for the next in order of attainment, like a branded bag, a pretty dress, a car, a family, a house, retirement, death.
of course, in my years of seeking to know more about existence, i had read about religion here and there. bits about buddhism, bits about the karmic wheel and reincarnation, bits about yin and yang, bits of astrology, bits of the christian bible. one thing i really disliked, was how the bible was written. how these absurd things happened and were taken in as facts, like people walking on water, the red sea parting, how people could live 800 years in the old testament, or did a good 1/3 of the world honestly believed that Jesus fed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes? and why was there still suffering in the world? earthquakes, natural disasters that killed innocent people? and worst of all, religious people who imposed their beliefs, causing strife and deaths. i too had been subjected to such poisonous righteousness in meeting people who thought less of me just because i didn't share their beliefs.
it was one of those down seasons in my life. summer of my 3rd year in school, i had earnestly wanted to spend it wisely gathering more experiences, and had exhausted every inch of my time doing a part time job, a part time research project and working on handicraft. i needed time out for thinking, and time out for me always meant new landscapes and that meant booking the next flight out of singapore. so i did, 20 days around south east asia. well, knowing more always made me more confused. and it did. i came back to a Leave Of Absence from school- a 6 month break to my next semester, and more confused than ever about the meaning of life.
obviously, i decided to do something about this confusion and that i was gonna quit using this etic approach in search of a cause to believe in because in doing so i was really just being judgmental. i wanted to start being emic about it. that meant no bible reading; i just wasn't gonna understand a book that put me on a different page as believers because unlike them, i wasn't going to take it as the 'word of God'. i wanted to be experiential about this, i wanted to know how people experienced faith. a trip to the library brought me to the book "Changing the World Through Kindness". it was a book about love. no judging, just pure love. love not through telling people "believe or else yer g'na go to hell" or that "Jesus loves you, (full stop, now believe)", or through winning arguments about God about who's greater, but love for strangers, love without obligations, love without agenda, showing them how Jesus would have loved them if he were to be alive today.
this was it, the greater love that i had been looking for. pure, non-judgmental love with no boundaries. we are humans, and did you for a moment think we were beings designed to just brush our teeth every morning and work and study, only to go to sleep at night, and then.. die? we were created to love. (think about the happiest times in your life. who did it involve?) many a time, people brush that part of them aside because it is a side of them in which they reign less control over, thus room for scary irrationality. and if God is love and He loves us, the notion of an unseen love all the more scares the pants out of people. how would one control how He loves me then?
but that night, i cried till my pillow became soggy with tears. something clicked within me, and the heavy burden of the sad things that were happening in the wretched world and the discouragement that nothing could be done about it was removed from my shoulders. i didn't wanna do good for fear of retribution in my next life (not that that was even within my concern seeing as how i already have problems to worry about in my current life, lol), i didn't wanna do good so that i could get something in return, i wanted to do good to love. and dang, i really wanted to know the God who made these people love so boundlessly. that night, i surrendered all that i didn't know about Christ to Christ through a prayer, that i knew there were so many things i didn't understand about what it meant to be a Christ-follower, and there were many things i disagreed with, but if He were true, that He revealed Himself to me. (Jeremiah 29:13)
my prayer was answered that night, for a wave of calm washed over me, and i experienced a peace there and then, and i knew in my heart that it was His way of comforting me. (i know, you must be thinking it sounds really absurd if you don't believe in another dimension of reality in this world, but i shall leave that to another day) so from then on, the process of knowing Him had never been crazier.
i've been through days of bible study that i didn't understand passages, i've been though going back to questioning about suffering in this world, how it can be reconciled with science- the tangible aspects of this draw towards Him. Bible study and knowing about the history of Christ is a necessary to knowing one's faith, not only because one needs to be sound in doctrine and build his faith through knowing God's character but also because we need to understand the very nature of our faith. But that being said, the experience of Him, the communication with Him (through prayer as the primary way) and the expression of His love to others ultimately is my walk with Him. For knowledge can tell me much, but experiencing Him really is a whole new dimension altogether.
so, what is following Christ in a nutshell?
it is not about winning a faith based argument with a friend, it is not about imposing your beliefs on another, it is not about singing songs of praise in church and then then living another kind of life out of it, it is not thinking worse of another just because he does not believe, it is not being self-righteous and judgmental, it is not about condemning people to hell for non belief, it is not about supporting the ways of man and taking the sides of Christians even as the things they do may be wrong, it is not a sunday social club, it is not about wanting to prove Christ as the One, nope, none of these.
it is about showing love, irregardless of age, race, language, religion, skin color, because we have received God's goodness and want to others to experience this goodness. for God so loved us, because He as the creator of the world was so powerful, and so unfathomable that man in our limited knowledge understood little of the goodness that He had installed for us. that was why He sent His son, Jesus, down to earth to teach and show us the ways of living.
it isn't about following a set of religious laws like what the pharisees thought it was, it is eating with the prostitutes and the taxpayers and loving them as you would a dear friend. it is about humility- thinking not less of yourself, but yourself less, and admitting that you are human and do make mistakes. it is about kindness, patience, charity, diligence, and above all, love. and if we could just merely act upon these virtues in our everyday life, there will be no need to explain ourselves, for our deeds speak for themselves (James 2:14-26). what has caused the religious strives of society? pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust- nothing but things that the Bible spoke of never to commit. now if we could walk the talk, and we are set on a pedestal (matthew 5:14), then that would be truly living out Jesus's way of life.
Love is the key, love with no obligations and love with no agenda, love that will touch souls an love that will always triumph, and i've never experienced a greater love than the love of God. sounds abstract, but really it isn't, you just gotta seek and you will find it.
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