Sunday, June 5, 2016

What if I'm wrong?

So we took Communion in church today, and for the first time since what seems like Middle School, I was sitting with my parents. Before Communion the Pastor always calls the congregation to contemplate their current relationship with God. It is a time of reflection and the confession of sins. It is the time to make sure you are focused completely on the presence of God and are prepared to "commune" with the Father alongside your fellow believers. Communion is also the time for us to remember Christ's sacrifice of body and blood (the bread and the wine) for our sins. This act is what pays the penalty for our sins, which is death. Jesus paid it all on the cross, so that we could be redeemed before God, saved from our sins. It is the foundation of our faith, and the hope for which we live.
Well, during this time of reflection a thought came to me, a perturbing thought that every man has when arguing with a woman. The same thought that pervades our minds when pursuing what we believe to be the right path. "What if I am wrong?"
My whole life has been steeped in Christianity and the Church. I've been spoon-fed God since infancy, and I have not known any other way of living than what God laid out for us in the Bible. My immediate family is Christian, my extended family is Christian, I grew up in a Christian school and the majority of my friends are all Christian. So naturally I accepted Jesus as my Savior at a young age and have lived a life of faith ever since. It just made sense.
Now, don't get me wrong, it still makes sense, but I'll get to that in a little bit.
I asked myself this question and contemplated through the "What if"s. If there is no God, then I've been wasting a LOT of my time and energy at the church. I've wasted opportunities for personal advancement and missed SO MANY opportunities for worldly pleasures. I've ignored potential mates, meaning I could have already had children (and sex, obviously), and I've restrained myself from engaging in activities that don't actually have any impact on my life after death. So in a worldly sense, my life has been so wasted (and not in the good sense).
But, let's look at the flip side (and this is what always brings me back when I ask myself this question). What happens if God does not exist? Nothing. I die, and that's it. Blank space, like T. Swift's song. Except this blank space stays blank, forever. No God means I get maybe 90-100 years of life, which would amount to very little in the grand scheme of the world, and at the most leave some kind of semi-lasting legacy that could be completely wiped out by WW3. It means that no decision I make really means anything, and it essentially means that I have no higher power which I am held accountable to for my actions. I'd be free to make any choice, and not have to feel guilty about it. Of course, having grown up religious I'd probably still feel guilty, but I wouldn't have to. I'd have the room to justify anything  and everything I do. And guess what? It still wouldn't really mean anything. Maybe I'd get to commit mass genocide like Hitler, or conquer most of the known world like Alexander the Great, but since there is no God, no Heaven, then it would be meaningless, without purpose.
You see, God gives me perspective. He gives me purpose. He gives me meaning. And He gives me hope. There is something beyond the next 75 years of my life (assuming I reach 100, lol). I would so much rather live my life with hope and meaning then surrender to hopelessness and depravity. I have put my faith in God, and He has continued to reveal Himself to me through life experiences, people, and answers to prayer. You may or may not believe as I do, but I really can't imagine living in a world without God.

P.S. I purposefully did not mention evidences for the existence of God as that will probably be addressed in a future post. So you can look forward to that. =)

No comments:

Post a Comment