We humans have an incredibly diverse array of beliefs. Many beliefs come from upbringing, language, culture, social class, family of origin, region of origin, education, friend group, and so on and on. Some people firmly believe in a higher power, and some firmly believe there isn’t one. Some people believe that once you die, that’s it, but some people believe your spirit lives on, whether on this earth or in another world altogether. Some people believe there are eternal consequences to our actions and some people believe there is no debt to pay on a life they didn’t choose in the first place. Today, we have access to all of it with a lit-up wi-fi signal. No wonder it can be hard to know what to believe!
What is it that’s True?
I asked this question six years ago, having no idea that it would lead me to a completely new path in my life’s journey. I had to be sure that what I believed was true. And not just true to me, but universally, undoubtedly, True with a capital “T.” True in the sense that all humans, no matter their beliefs or backgrounds, would agree with me that it was True. No pressure, right? However, I was tired of constantly being suspicious of deceiving myself just to make myself feel better about who I was and what I could do on this earth. I remember asking myself,
“Why do I feel so joyless and hopeless if I believe in a loving God? What’s the point of believing in God if this is what life feels like?”
I struggled to get past this question. Everything I’d been taught about God growing up in Christian services, classes, and groups taught that if I believed in Him–meaning if I relied upon Him to provide the need of my sinful soul to be saved–then my life would not only be bearable but full of joy and hope. I felt nothing of the sort; something was off, and these beliefs just didn’t align anymore with my experience. I felt forced to conclude that not only didn’t I believe in God after all, but that God was never there to begin with.
After all, these soul-level questions seemed irrelevant and plain unanswerable in work settings, university settings, and intellectual conversation. What did I really need them for if they weren’t helping me? The reality is that my beliefs about God and the human soul colored every decision I made. The relevance of what I believed was just as important as it always has been for anyone else since the beginning of humanity; that hasn’t changed. Wrong or untrue beliefs still have the potential to bring ruin upon our spirits and our hearts, which I know first hand.
Before I continue, I want to clarify that belief and free will are two different things. Beliefs are assumptions about how the world works, how humans work, how God works. Free will on the other hand is our ability to make choices independent from the control of anyone or anything else. There are plenty of groups in existence today that rely on taking away the free will of their members in the name of “higher,” or “more important” beliefs and ideals. By planting a belief in someone’s mind, they can turn a person to their will, if the person is willing. I plan to explore this extensively in a future post, but for now, know that these groups exist, and you mustn’t give up your gift of free will to anyone. Ever.
Belief is the driver of the intentional decisions we make (we can also make decisions unintentionally or passively). Belief is the most powerful thing we have as human beings for this and many other reasons; here are a few I’d like to share.
Belief can’t be bought or sold.
The most important things in life can’t be bought or sold, and belief is one of those things, among love, forgiveness, grace, joy, and peace. You could have all the money in the world and you still couldn’t buy more. Belief is a gift. It’s something that each individual soul has the ability to do, simply by being born. It is part of being human to believe. It gives us a framework to live by, and motivation to keep going. The earth is round (it is, by the way), and the sun will rise tomorrow (probably). We also can’t fake our belief. Each accepted belief demands our complete authenticity and loyalty. We either believe or we don’t and that’s okay. But, we can always find ways to work on our belief or lack thereof. We can challenge our beliefs, we can bolster them, and we can choose what we put our belief in.
Belief dictates the direction of your life.
What we believe influences the choices we make. If you believe the earth is flat, you’d balk at the idea of boarding an ocean liner for fear of falling off the edge and into outer space (okay, okay, I’m done with that analogy now). The choices we make day-to-day determine what direction our lives will take. For a stretch of time in my journey, I let go of all the beliefs I possibly could to figure out what is True, including the belief that there are eternal consequences to my actions. While I didn’t do anything criminal or mean-spirited in that time, I let go of the belief that there was purpose or any greater meaning to my life than the here-and-now of it. That made the direction of my life lack meaning too. Turns out it was just another lie I was believing–the very thing I was trying to avoid! It’s easy to overlook the huge amount of influence our beliefs have over our lives. A major reason we need them is to free up our minds to focus on details, to be able to assume certain truths in order to move further into a topic or activity and not get perpetually stuck in a state of inaction. Having assumptions gives us the ability to forget about the big questions that can give us a headache. But I would challenge you to examine your assumptions about yourself. Don’t go on believing lies that keep you from acting and moving forward in your life if you don’t have to. There is great freedom in believing the Truth about yourself.
Beliefs are your own; no one can believe for you.
Some of us have a harder time believing than others, but that ability as well as our own set of beliefs is unique to each one of us. No one can believe something or bear its burden of responsibility for you. You alone must own what you say you believe. In order to believe something, you must identify it as true, at least for you. We have different ways of testing what we believe in, like fact-checking, counsel-seeking, or experiencing. But we all must participate in the act of believing. It takes action on our part to believe something with all that we are–heart, mind, and spirit. Belief is something that demands to be taken seriously; the power and sway of a belief in your life is too strong to do otherwise.
Without belief, we lose our humanity.
I settled on the fact that I could not accept life without meaning. There came a time when I couldn’t deny that meaning was present even while still feeling completely lost and identified way too closely with Ecclesiastes 1. Even though I didn’t know what it was at first, (and at times I still lose sight of it), I know life has meaning. That is because I have accepted the belief that meaning exists; I hold this to be true after careful consideration and examination. I experienced what life would be like without believing in meaning, and Truth wasn’t there. Belief is part of how we operate and make decisions in the world; it is fundamental to being human. Without belief, we lose not only the Truth but we lose our very humanity.
Examining what you believe is not easy, it can be scary to challenge yourself because you can’t escape yourself once you do. You give yourself no place to rest from that challenge once you enter into it; you can only go through it. But belief in the Truth is worth the journey. It will be hard, and there will probably be days you feel like quitting, but there is amazing potential to engage for yourself with an experience that is uniquely and beautifully human. Belief is a powerful force, the most powerful one we have, as it holds the power to save our very souls. The act of believing has the power to allow us the hope of life itself (John 3:16). My prayer lately has been that of the father of the boy with the unclean spirit, who says to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Jesus says to him, “All things are possible to the one who believes” (Mark 9:23).
“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” -Romans 10:9
Resources for further reading: Starting Point by Andy Stanley