Tag: Belief

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My Elimination Diet Story

This week marks one year of changing everything about the way I eat by adopting a strict elimination diet.

Thirteen months ago, I was in tears at my parents’ kitchen table. I was talking to my family about the overwhelming task of drastically and permanently changing my diet, and by extension the way I go about life. But hold on, you might be thinking, what does an elimination diet have to do with life with the King? 

It called upon me to step out of passivity and step into what was right for my body, a temple of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5; 2 Timothy 1:14), not just sometimes but at every single meal. It called upon me to develop a spirit of discipline and perseverance. It called upon me to practice self-control. It called me to trust God in a deeper way. Ultimately, I want to share my story because it revealed things I needed to let God heal in me, and if I can do it, you can too.  

What I Gave Up

I was at a point where I felt stuck in a grab-and-go and restaurant-heavy diet. It worked with my busy lifestyle at the time, eating out on my way here or on the way back from there. The more I gave in to unhealthy diet choices, the more I was tempted by the constant food marketing we all see advertised. Not to mention giving all those foods up would surely ruin my social life; so much of it revolved around eating together with friends. Some of my favorite memories with them involve elaborate potlucks, and going to restaurants for birthdays or other celebrations. We even made a run of trying to sample all the world cuisines; many of us just love food. 

Eliminating the ingredients found in virtually everything? I was very concerned about sounding snobbish, rude, or judgmental if I refused the foods all my friends were eating. Not only that, but how else would we spend time together? (Yes, this was pre-COVID-19). 

While diet was my only ticket out of a prescription I had been taking for years, I was also terrified to stop taking it. To give up my prescription was what I wanted, but it actually meant that I would be facing the scariest withdrawal side effect, depression, head-on. It had hit me with a vengeance less than two weeks after I stopped the prescription once before, around three years prior. Depression messes with my concept of identity, not to mention life itself. Believing the lies depression tells is what scares me perhaps more than anything else. That fear of depression had kept me passively accepting my health situation to that point.

I also just doubted my own resolve. I felt unprepared to give up my restaurant fixes and my social life, like all I had to fight it with was my weak and admittedly underdeveloped self-discipline. 

But my feelings were wrong; the truth was I had God on my side too. 

Little did I know then that He would work so much more in this food journey than I ever imagined. I also had people in my family who encouraged and believed in me to see it through. They prayed for me and believed I could stay on course even though I didn’t. That kitchen table conversation? I left that night with renewed hope and resolve. 

Perseverance and Discipline

The initial motivator that made me push past all these hangups and attempt to discipline myself? The desire to stop taking the prescription I was on (an elimination diet plan would prepare my body for weaning off). Diet was the only option I knew of for doing that. Also, that same prescription was starting to cause ever-more-severe side effects that I had grown weary of tolerating.  

To clarify, I am NOT anti-medication. Medication can and does help people in many cases and there is absolutely a place for them. However, when the costs outweigh the benefits, I believe we need to look for safe alternatives; so that is what I did. 

After six years on my prescription, I had developed severe gastrointestinal (GI) side effects, or “leaky gut.” This is a known side effect. Sadly, my doctor dismissed it as something that can’t be tested or measured, despite my acute and nearly constant pain. 

Changing your lifestyle sounds like such a cliche until you actually try it. It’s hard work, and it takes planning and a willingness to disappoint other people if and when necessary. It takes removing temptations entirely from your environment. It also takes a really, really important reason. 

Sure, I wanted to feel better and get out of pain, but mostly I wanted to gain back my freedom from this prescription I no longer felt was helping me. I did not want to be that dependent on anything but God. And it was harming my body as well. Being strung along against my will just would not do any longer; it was clear to me then that it didn’t fit with what I believe. But soon I came to realize there were many other ways it didn’t fit me. 

Self Control

To help prepare my prescription-dependent brain and body to wean off, I committed to clean foods. I committed to investing a bit more in my health and purchasing organic fruit and vegetables, grass-fed meat, and pasture raised eggs. I went gluten, grain, soy, dairy, corn, caffeine, alcohol, processed/added sugar, potato, and peanut free on September 3rd, 2019. 

Miraculously, I stuck faithfully to this for the first six months (I followed a fantastic book’s plan which also included some supplements—with my doctor’s approval). This meant that suddenly, cooking became a much bigger part of life. In order to make it work for me and my personality as much as possible, I got rid of everything in my kitchen that had any ingredients I couldn’t eat and replaced them all with plan-friendly alternatives, like swapping soy sauce for coconut aminos, or white flour with almond flour. To help myself with self-control, I needed to minimize temptation. 

I was going to make sure that I was welcome in my own kitchen, even if nowhere else. 

I armed myself with plenty of versatile, fun recipes to try, like Thai chicken soup and spiced stir fry, so I never got bored within the ingredient limitations. I can count on one hand the times in those first six months that I ate anything I didn’t prepare myself—mostly times when I was out with friends. Most of those times I was eating within my ingredient restrictions, but none of those instances went particularly well. The cross-contamination was likely just too high. However my body was, thankfully, able to recover more quickly than before I started the elimination diet.

My previously constant GI symptoms mostly disappeared around the two-month mark of being on this plan, around early November 2019. Let me repeat that, 

It took only two months of diligence in self control for my leaky gut symptoms to disappear. 

That’s when I started feeling really good, relieved, energized, and motivated to keep going. I stuck to it through tempting holiday foods at Thanksgiving and Christmas with no unmanageable cravings.  

For anyone who believes inflammation or GI symptoms can’t be helped from diet and supplements alone, from the foods and plants that God’s earth provides for us, I am living proof that they can. 

After four months, I felt my body had gotten accustomed to the diet and was still feeling good. Finally, I was ready to stop taking my prescription in late December (again, with my doctor’s approval). I also started some more intense supplements to help repair intestinal damage and support my liver function even more. At that point, I’d done all I could do and prayed to God, asking Him to take care of the rest. I’d reached the first milestone—four months of eating for my health. Would it pay off? Could depression and other medication withdrawal side effects really be staved off? 

I continued faithfully with the diet through January. By late February, I had no negative side effects of stopping my prescription. I was both shocked and delighted. I could begin the food reintroduction phase of the elimination diet.

First, I tried reintroducing gluten, then dairy, corn, rice, potatoes, and peanuts. Each time I felt mildly tired and lethargic. It wasn’t painful, but I knew how great it was to feel at my best, and surprisingly, even just the “mild,” pain-free cost was no longer worth it to me. I could try reintroduction of these things again after a few months; these costs can lessen over time. For now, I only eat these ingredients in small amounts and very occasionally.  

I reintroduced oats with no negative symptoms, so I now eat them regularly. Because of the way my body reacts to them, I have not tried and have no plans to reintroduce soy, caffeine, alcohol, or added sugars—maybe ever.  

I am still very much in the middle of my self-control journey, but I’ve learned a lot in just one year.

Before starting an elimination diet, I didn’t restrict myself at all as to what, how much, or when I eat. But all these factors affect our bodies, and in turn our minds and spirits as well. Proverbs 25:28 reads, “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” This past year’s elimination diet has been more than a diet, it has been a process of first realizing that my own internal “city” had some broken walls, and then putting the walls back together, piece by piece, day by day, meal by meal. Excess of anything without restriction, and ultimately gluttony, isn’t the Way of Jesus. In fact, it is in opposition to it. 

In an elimination diet mindset, you have to die to your will, forget about what you want to eat or feel pressure to eat, and follow the plan, because it’s the best thing for you and your health. Sounds familiar, right? Similarly, I can’t just go and do or say whatever I want because I have chosen to yield to the authority of Jesus. 

You can deny yourself and pick up your cross even when it comes to food choices.

Specifically, picking up my cross means loving God, loving others, and loving myself. Was eating whatever, whenever, even when it was harmful for my body, in line with my beliefs–in line with loving myself? For me, it was not. Treating my body in any way other than as the temple of the Holy Spirit that it is was not loving myself. It was suppressing who I am, mind, body, and spirit. My mind made excuses for it, my body tried in vain to compensate for it, and my spirit was dissatisfied by the whole thing. If I hadn’t suffered with the intolerable symptoms of leaky gut that tipped the scale for me to take action, I shudder at the thought that I might still be in that place.  

I honestly was blind to the issues with eating whatever whenever before I actually started taking the actions of preparing and eating the right foods. Usually, our thoughts motivate our actions, but sometimes our actions help clarify our thoughts when it comes to the Truth–this was one of those profound times for me. 

Restricting my diet helped me gain a sense of self-control that I didn’t have before, and it healed a part of my spirit and mind in the process!

I started out last August dreading a restrictive elimination diet, thinking I would fail and feel terrible about myself, but today, thanks be to God, the opposite is true. I feel happier with myself having acted on it and seeing it through faithfully. My friends didn’t abandon me, in fact, they fully supported me in my health journey; now looking back I wonder why I didn’t think that they would! 

Sticking to something healthy for my body was an act of love for self, which I now see as an act of love for God. I wasn’t compromising my peace of mind or arteries anymore for a greasy, sweet takeout meal. I was doing what I set out to do for my health and well being, letting God take care of the rest. And that’s exactly where I’d ever want to be! 

Trust God 

I learned that God gave us an amazing array of foods that can interact with our bodies in some very healing and restorative ways. 

This journey on an elimination diet helped me to learn that looking at food with this perspective can free us from wanting to make the unhealthy diet choices constantly being marketed to us via all forms of media. It also gave me a whole new layer of self agency—I was at a point with diet a year ago where I didn’t believe I could resist some of the food marketing (doughnut commercials, anyone?), and now that I’ve gone through it, I believe it is possible for anyone. 

Eating differently and making food choices for my health led me to see food differently; I thought it was interesting to note that it didn’t happen the other way around–the perspective shift came by doing. In the day-to-day, I have learned that self control over my food choices is ultimately much more satisfying to my soul, and is much more in line with who I am and what I believe, than indulgence. 

Now, I am still on this journey! I have had some recent, though much less severe, health issues show up that are still in need of full healing. I am fine-tuning, working with doctors and experimenting with natural supplements to support overall health and heal the root issue of symptoms instead of taking medications to mask them, as I had before. Natural, “God-made” ingredients are the way I want to go whenever possible. I would not have thought a natural remedy was even a legitimate option had I not gone through the food journey I went on this year or experienced the healing I did. 

My elimination diet process showed me how deeply our bodies are connected to the health of our minds and spirits, and that our bodies are equally important for our overall health. 

God provides what we need to heal, and change is possible no matter how intimidating, when it comes to being more of who God made you to be and living out your beliefs about Him. 

I had to let go of some things in my life to live out what I believe and live out my trust in God. I now have a desire to continue taking action and walking in trust, to continuously act on trust that God provided me with a body that can adapt, heal, and thrive on the foods that He made, instead of the (in my case) harmful chemicals that man made. 

When we pay attention to and love our bodies, and what information they are giving us about our health (they always do!), we love ourselves and fulfill His commandment to walk in love (Ephesians 5:2). By allowing God to heal us, and walking in that healing, we become a living testament of His goodness.

“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

“...make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, and follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.  

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A Closer Look at God’s Forgiveness

Do we really need to forgive ourselves?  

I’ve been seriously wrestling with this question for five years. I’ve fervently tried, but I was never able to feel settled with the statement that I had “forgiven myself.” 

The thing is, I knew I hadn’t fully. I wasn’t even sure I could. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that I am dust and just couldn’t shake the truth that without God’s grace through Jesus I am unforgivable, flawed, and hopelessly sinful. That is what makes God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice for us so incredibly difficult to comprehend. Offering grace to ourselves is not always an easy task, even on our best days. 

Lately I’ve been working very hard on accepting the truth, even if it’s not pretty or what I or others would want to hear. Jesus had to come and forgive me; I can’t forgive myself on my own. Without His grace (upon grace…) I am not gracious enough toward myself to forgive fully. I can’t pardon myself from the sins I’ve committed or fix my fallen nature. I can’t absolve myself of guilt. Only Jesus can do that.  

Forgiving ourselves is not done on our own strength, it’s about leaning on the forgiveness Jesus already offers to us.

I can’t shake the truth that I desperately need Jesus’ forgiveness. It is His forgiveness that allows me to forgive others, and myself. We are not meant to live under the weight of heavy guilt; instead, we are meant to live freely and lightly (Matthew 11:30). As He calls us to follow Him, He invites us to come to Him and accept the forgiveness He has for us. 

In accepting His forgiveness, we believe the unbelievable, that what God says really is true, and that Jesus’ work on the cross really was enough. We are made in His image, so we all have the capacity to forgive, but Jesus teaches us how to do this. Jesus enables us to forgive, wholly and truly, through and through.   

Through His amazing grace, we may extend complete grace to ourselves and others.

We can start to see ourselves through His eyes when we accept His forgiveness. And we might need to choose to accept it several times every day! Just as we have to choose to take up our cross daily, we must also choose to accept His forgiveness as we continue to make mistakes, doubt our own faith, or struggle to show grace to ourselves and others. 

Forgiveness is a choice God made in relation to us. We do not have to do anything to earn it, a strange feeling in our world where so much must be earned. Accepting God’s choice to forgive us despite what we may feel about ourselves at any given moment isn’t always so easy. (I mean, did He see what I did? If I’m disgusted in me, then surely He is, right?) Wrong. He loves and forgives us unconditionally. And He knew that you were going to do whatever it is you did, but that doesn’t change a thing. 

Jesus already paid the full price for our forgiveness. As we believe this, the Holy Spirit lives in us and loves us as part of His own family. This is the fact; feelings that keep us from believing we can be forgiven are not fact.  

It’s okay to give your feelings time to catch up with facts. 

It is not okay, however, to let feelings blind you to facts. The facts are that God loves you, Jesus paid the price for you, and that you are forgiven and free in Him. How amazing that we do not have to do anything more than believe to receive His forgiveness! And even more than this, His forgiveness empowers us to forgive to greater depths than we ever could on our own strength.                  

Yet, we are ever-tempted to give in to the false feelings that are not of God, of guilt and shame. For some of us, these feelings might be a comfortable place to be. But these feelings were never meant to linger and we were never meant to dwell among them. Jesus said, “...it is necessary that temptations come…” (Matthew 18:7). Temptations and disobedience will happen, but it doesn’t erase what God has done or who we are in Him at all. Guilt and shame must be dealt with yet moved through, for we are meant to dwell in Jesus’ freedom. 

When God leads us through temptations to the other side, He shows us who He is, for He walks with us the whole way.

Not only am I aware that I am dust, but God is aware too (Psalm 103:14), and He has mercy for that. He knows we will be tempted to choose not to believe the facts and go with our feelings. 

In fact, God uses even these temptations for His glory, “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (Romans 11:32). He gives us no reason to fear. He knows we need Him, and He forgives us for being human.   

It’s okay to accept God’s forgiveness.  

In reference to Romans 8:33, the ESV Study Bible notes, “Satan, their enemies, or even their own consciences may bring charges against God’s elect, but those who have come to faith in Christ will never be found guilty, for God declares them to be right before all the world at the divine tribunal.”

This means we will face charges in our own thoughts and consciences, and it’s not a question of if but when–this will happen. It does not change the fact that Jesus Christ cleared us of our charges and forgave us. 

Asking God to forgive us, and believing He does, is enough.  

Paul wrote, “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Romans 3:28). We do not have to work and do extra to earn forgiveness. Forgiveness is not earned, it is given. He asks us to have faith in Him; His forgiveness for us doesn’t depend on our striving or achieving. 

We don’t have to strive to earn freedom from guilt, instead, we are invited to have faith that we are forgiven. 

In Matthew, it says, “with God all things are possible” (19:26). As we struggle with forgiving ourselves, let us take heart in knowing that we can rest because of who Jesus is, what He has done, and what He, even now, is doing on our behalf; “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). 

Not only has he paid the price for our forgiveness, but He continually works on our behalf; we have no need to strive because of Him.

May we let it all rest in Jesus. 

“God is for us, so who can be against us” (Romans 8:31)?

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.  

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The Serpent’s Question

I always thought it was a little harsh for Jesus to call Peter “Satan,” after he didn’t want to accept the news that Jesus would be killed. I mean, can I blame Peter for at least trying to lighten the mood after Jesus made such a dark pronouncement? Maybe Peter’s motives weren’t really “evil” and he just wanted to bring a little hope to Jesus, right? 

This week, my perspective has been completely changed, and I wanted to share it with you. What finally became clear to me about this oft-quoted scene was that Jesus was seeing past both Peter’s actual words and perhaps motives too. Instead, Jesus was discerning the true meaning and belief Peter had, a basic assumption that allowed him to even utter these words.

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’

Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns’” (Matthew 16:21-23). 

Jesus saw that Peter, perhaps unknowingly, was actually questioning what God said in the Old Testament. Though it clearly foretells through the psalms and prophets that the Messiah must suffer (eg: Isaiah 53), Peter revealed that he could not believe these prophecies. 

Peter’s question had the same meaning as the serpent’s question to Eve in Genesis 3:1, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 

Did God actually… was the seed of doubt planted in Eve’s mind, a question of her belief. After a bit more of the serpent’s reasoning in verses 4-5, Eve’s belief in God’s trustworthiness was swayed, all because of the serpent’s question. 

Asking herself a serpent’s question,“Is that REALLY what God said?,” had disastrous consequences. 

Sure, for Peter, it might have been comforting in the moment to question whether his friend and teacher Jesus’ death was inevitable, but it wouldn’t have been in line with what God said in His Word. If Jesus believed a lie about God, even just one, it would have been disastrous. 

Okay, you may be thinking, I get it. But what exactly moved Jesus so much as to call Peter “Satan?” Peter’s words “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” in Matthew 16 are not the same words the serpent used with Eve.

However, if we look at the belief behind Peter’s words, it is in direct opposition with God’s Word. Peter’s meaning essentially comes down to, “I do not believe God!” Jesus saw Peter’s words to be a clear rejection of God’s truth. He saw it as a complete lack of faith in the Word of God. To deny the foretold suffering was to deny that God was actually telling the truth–there it is plainly, Satan’s trademark. In light of this, Jesus was perhaps not so much harshly overacting toward Peter as simply calling it what it was.   

Listening for the meaning behind any question will help us see as sharply as Jesus did. 

Friends, I invite you to join with me in asking the Holy Spirit for discernment to know the belief behind the words we take in and tell ourselves.

Luckily, the serpent’s questions are unoriginal. Their underlying meaning and belief are always the same. But they are crafty. They can sneak into our thoughts just as easily as they did with Peter’s if we don’t watch for them. The essence of Peter’s rebuke and all serpent’s questions are, “God couldn’t possibly have meant that!” Other variations include, Is God really like that? Is that actually what God said? 

Learn to recognize the serpent’s question.

Coming to terms with our own serpent’s questions is no small feat. When we recognize we are trying to do something on our own strength, realize we haven’t prayed about something we’ve been worrying about for weeks, or simply don’t understand why our putting in more time and effort for something we want is getting us nowhere, we have a moment of opportunity. It is there we can stop and see the truth of our position, which is humility. One of my new favorite verses speaks perfectly to this, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32). When we go our own way in disobedience, even there we find God’s grace.

How to break this cycle? Living in honest dependence on God involves recognizing that we are desperate without Him. Complete dependence is terrifyingly vulnerable. Yet, that’s how intensely and intimately God invites us to trust in Him. “...unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). As His children, God invites us to depend on Him for every need and every desire; He is and never stopped being our Good Father.  

Being aware of our desperation for God can lead us to two extremes: total surrender or complete resentment. 

In surrender, we are humbled, in awe, broken and owning up to that brokenness. We are aware in that place of surrender that we have nothing to give without God. On the opposite end, recognizing how dependent we really are on God can also feel frustrating, even demoralizing. If we’re honest, we can resent that we will never truly be able to fulfill that natural human desire for power and control. Knowing the truth that God is the one in control can be a struggle to come to terms with. But take heart, God takes this into account too, “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14).

Maybe you’re like me, and struggling with overcoming pride might be a huge part of your spiritual journey too. That’s okay. When and as we are ready, God is faithful to show us the beauty of that other side, the side of our willing surrender to His capable hands. He is constantly showing us His goodness, and how good it is that He is in control, and not us. We need only to look for it and be open to seeing it. There is always more to learn, more to understand, more to discover about God. That is what makes our Life with the King so exciting! 

We cannot glorify God if we are too busy glorifying ourselves. 

I’m telling myself this too! So, how do we deny self daily (Luke 9:23)? How do we fulfill the greatest commands, to love God and love others as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39)? It is a constant decision to pick up our crosses and obey Jesus willingly. How do we keep this up? To love God is a daily choice. God is the one who then takes that choice and makes us able to love. Love is the most fulfilling part of life. The Way of love brings fulfillment! We must depend on Him and His love completely, fully, and humbly to walk in the Way of love. Maybe this too is why Jesus reacted so harshly to Peter; He knew that Peter wasn’t surrendered fully to God’s will.

That place of obedience and surrender to the Way of walking out His command is where our ego dies. Denying ourselves doesn’t just happen. It takes a willing humility to choose it every day. We will fail sometimes. That’s okay. But there is nothing better than being surrendered to the will of God. That is the place God intended for us from the beginning, when all was perfect in the Garden. There is no room to feel self important in that place of complete grace, mercy and childlike dependence. Jesus’ work on the cross made a Way for us to come back into God’s will. In that place, serpent’s questions are silenced. There is no ego in love.  

Allow your heart, your soul, your very self, to be moved by God’s love for you.

It is in that place of acceptance of being loved by God that we can begin to live freely and lightly, under the authority and protection, the abundance and goodness, the meaning and fulfillment, of Christ. 

We do not make ourselves able; we make ourselves available to Him. 

That is our step; to be open to God and all He has for us. In doing that, we let Him come close to rescue us, give us His Spirit, and fight temptation with us. God makes us able. Amen.

“Resist the devil and he will flee…” (James 4:7)

“Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?’” (James 4:5). 

Thank you for spending some of your journey here. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to this blog, it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace. 

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The Truth about Philosophy and Mental Health

Just for a moment, imagine you are in the process of figuring out your beliefs. You know you will use them and navigate decisions with them, for the rest of your life. Imagine that you look at the world’s beliefs with all their opinions, ideologies, and religions. How do you decide what beliefs are true? 

Any belief that we take on can have serious consequences for our spirit, and in turn, our mental health. 

Beliefs impact our well-being, mentally and emotionally. What we believe internally, meaning our expectations and hopes, carry serious weight and are just as important as our external, circumstantial experience of being. If we treat our beliefs with too little importance, eventually they will catch up with us. According to psychologist Jordan Peterson, when our internal and external worlds don’t align enough or are misaligned for too long, serious psychological pathology can result.  

The passage below from Colossians triggered a turning point in my thinking about what I believe: 

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness” (Colossians 2:6-9). 

When I read it, this passage shockingly spoke directly to my past, in which philosophy was my bible for navigating life. The human ways of knowing that philosophy offered completely charmed me. It seemed comfortingly detached, logical, and rational, something I could stand on as a marker when the tide of my personal feelings made me drift away from reality. In philosophy, everything must be explained, justified, and correct. If an idea stood the test of philosophical debate, I thought it must be right, at least right enough for me to believe in. 

I failed to realize in time that philosophy must be used as a tool and not be made a god. 

People use philosophy as a way to get to the truth of something. That’s why it appealed so much to me; I wanted to get to the truth. The truth about philosophy, however, is that it is only a tool, which has a place. We must not confuse it, however, with the truth itself. 

Many Christians fear learning philosophy, likely with the assumption that it will make them pick apart every belief they have about God with human logic. People do not like their beliefs to be challenged. Of course, enjoying the ego thrill, I dove right into philosophy when I started having questions and doubts about God. What could be so scary about philosophy if the stories about Jesus were true, right?

However, I soon realized that philosophy wasn’t concerned with the truth about Jesus. Instead, it pulled me into a whole other set of concerns altogether, and slowly, I was trained in its way of thought. Much like an ideology or religion. 

Soon I was thinking philosophically about everything, and putting it in that highest place for truth that it simply wasn’t meant for. Philosophy made me feel powerful. It made me feel like I could argue my way past any belief. It made me feel like I was too good for beliefs. 

Sin causes our thoughts and feelings to deceive us about who we are.

Philosophy is one of the fastest ways to an unhealthy pride in oneself that I know of. It made me feel like I didn’t need God. My identity became wrapped up in my philosophical ability. 

Of course, I was naive about approaching philosophy, which is perhaps why it became so dangerous. I am certain many others approach philosophy in a very healthy way and thus have no qualms about using it. Today, I can say that there is no reason to be afraid of philosophy if one can see it as the tool it is. But, if we use it as the standard by which we make decisions and judgments, that is where it can cause damage to mental health. 

Human knowledge does not equal divine wisdom. 

Fast forward a couple of years and my mental health was declining. Jordan Peterson describes it as a sort of “sickness of the spirit.” I suspect there were other factors involved too, but I am sure that at least part of the reason was that my expectations about life did not match up with my hopes. 

Why wasn’t philosophy “working” for me? Why weren’t those feelings of superior knowledge manifesting in a better life? 

In fact, they’d only led me to a place where I was no longer searching for meaning and thus was simply unhappy. Philosophical thinking hadn’t improved my life, instead it seemed to weaken it. At the time, I could not understand why. 

Thankfully, God didn’t let me forget Him. I looked for the people who were happy, desperate for something to help ease my mental suffering. I tried to learn from them. In talking to Jesus-following believers, God challenged me to seek the whole truth found in Him, not just parts of the truth that philosophy grasps for. That’s when I discovered the truest thing I could find in this world; a deep, meaningful relationship that He wants to have with each one of us. 

It wasn’t logic-centered, it wasn’t calculated. It was messy and beautiful and scary and wonderful. The truth was more like relationship and art and less like philosophy and logic than I ever imagined.  

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20).

All my philosophical beliefs crumbled under the authority of God in this one brutal, beautiful verse.  

Indeed, God made all the most advanced, complex brilliance of human knowledge foolish when it comes to understanding His Kingdom. Whereas philosophy locks us into something rigidly, relationship with God frees us. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). 

No one can be happy if they aren’t free. We were created to have free will, and to make our own choices about what we believe. We must take special care when considering any religion, ideology, or theory–it will affect our very souls and our psychological well being. 

The wisdom of the world is opposite to the wisdom of God.

Jesus Himself delighted in the simplicity of the Gospel in Luke 10: “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do . . .’” (Luke 10:21).

He makes it possible to understand who He really is whether you can wield human logic or not. He desires relationship with each precious soul in a profoundly personal way. Who or what others tell you He is shouldn’t matter more than who He has revealed Himself to you to be. God can reach us through any means, including human understanding and logic, but that is certainly not the only way. If that was the case only the smartest people in the world would be able to find Him and know Him. He ensured that little children can know Him too. The pursuit of intellect for its own sake will not bring us closer to Him. The pursuit of Him will always lead us to Him.  

How beautiful and fair and just God is! He gives us all an equal chance to have a relationship with Him. In Him, there is no class or status or ranks. Only love and our choice to love Him as He already first loved and loves and will love us. 

God wants us to know Him. 

Whereas a reliance on philosophy to tell us what’s true will leave our souls wanting, God restores our souls. He gives us life breath. He calls us into our true identity in Jesus Christ. He sends the comforter and friend, the Holy Spirit, to be with us and to fill us so we can stand firm in faith in the face of trials.  

If you’re wrestling with existential questions right now, you are not alone. But take heart that your wrestle shows that you are well on your way to finding the peace of God that transcends all understanding (Philippians 4:7). 

I would invite you to take a moment to reflect on what God might be communicating to you through the question you are asking. What is He is up to in our souls when we have these questions? How can we bring our felt experience into better alignment with the greatest hopes you have, in the fullness of God, in abundant life?  

During this Holy Week, behold His vast complexity, love and beauty. He has given us the capacity to sense deeply when our experience doesn’t match with our hopes or expectations for a reason. It is an invitation to seek God, and He promises that when we do seek Him, we will find Him: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

This Easter weekend, as we remember together that Jesus came, was crucified, and defeated death itself to give us life, let’s remember that He designed our souls to be fulfilled and our minds to be at peace by knowing Him deeply. Yes, even us, the prideful, rebellious, power-seekers that we are. He loves us anyway, just the same. He calls us worth dying for, He calls us His, He calls us family. Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ (Romans 8:39). Rely on the love and sacrifice Jesus made for you today. Seek to know Him more every day; it’s worth it. He is life itself, He is beyond every belief, He is everything. 

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8). 

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Dealing with Pride

“what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). Recently I found myself in a situation where I chose to sin. Of course, this was just one of the many times this has happened. Willfully sinning is really confusing, and more people need to talk about this; it messes with any feelings of pride in myself.    

When I don’t feel right with myself, it’s difficult to keep hold of what’s true. My mind starts to crowd with these lies of how God is disappointed in me, is distant from me, and wants nothing to do with me anymore. How maybe my identity in Him was all just something I made up in my mind. This is really not okay. 

In the midst of this pride-shattering moment, it became quite impossible for me to imagine that He could love me in spite of sin, and yet He does. In fact, He does just the same as if I had never sinned even once. Amazing grace, indeed. So amazing, in fact, that it can be difficult to accept at all.  

Pride

I, like pretty much everybody, sinned against God simply because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. The sin of pride is and can be a wake-up call to look at and watch more carefully what goes on in our hearts and souls. My conscience was firing, my soul needed to get right with God again, and I had to confess my sin. I needed to repent all over again. After wrestling with the fact that I had followed sin instead of God, I realized that I was getting too comfortable. In my pride, my thought was actually that I was close to being past willful sin; but the Bible says that “no one may boast before Him” (1 Corinthians 1:29). 

Even after I repented, I felt it wasn’t enough. I was still upset with myself. God had forgiven me, but I hadn’t been able to forgive myself. Friends, that is pride in a sneaky form. Instead of fully accepting God’s love and forgiveness, I was trying to shoulder the burden of sin myself. In withholding forgiveness for ourselves like I did, we actually think there’s something more we can do to make up for it. In not surrendering fully to God’s forgiveness, we try to take this sin of ours into our own hands. This is pride. 

This is a complicated subject, so don’t mistake my meaning; what we do in our lives–does matter. Sin matters. One of the fruits of the Spirit is love. Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). We are certainly meant to live in a way that follows the Way of Jesus, who was sinless. In James, actions are called “works”: “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). Faith comes first, for actions flow from faith–the fruit of our lives, but what we do and what we choose, matters. However, nothing we do can make up for our sin.    

Sin 

Jesus paid it all for us. It is prideful to try to make up for it in any other way besides how He calls us to–to leave our life of sin. 

Willful sins torture the conscience of those committed to the Way of Jesus. They still can creep up on us, as we are still here on the fallen earth. We still are made of dust. We have one foot here and one readied for the age to come. We have been set free from sin by Jesus, but at any moment we can choose to step outside God’s will to do our own will and sin against Him. 

Sometimes the only way to know what sin is, is because of what the Bible says. My own thoughts and feelings change constantly. My moral compass was shattered at the Fall. It’s hard to know the Truth about many things, and it can appear as though every person has their own version of truth. But actually this cultural catchphrase “live your truth” or “follow your truth” is saying that everyone has their own beliefs about what the truth is. Beliefs do not change the Truth.  

Of course, what we believe is important; for more on that see my post How Belief is Our Most Powerful Tool. But I am saying that believing something doesn’t make it so. 

Hope for self-hate

I debated whether to mention self-hate, but just like willful sin, I feel that it needs to be addressed if we’re talking about a life lived in freedom. Self hate; that point at which I mess up and I’m just disgusted with myself and how miserably I failed to fear God…yep, that was my week. Self-hate is a very real thing and I wanted to share that I experience this because I don’t think I’m the only one. I’m here to say that there is still hope, even in a place of self-hate.

Yes, we sin. But that just gives us another opportunity to talk to God. Another reason to repent, to put our faith in God all over again, and process what went wrong with Him. To let Him make something good grow in us that maybe wasn’t developed yet. Or even to weed out something that no longer needs to be there. He gives us all fresh opportunities to work through our sins with Him, confess them, and let them go thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice. Praise God that “his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Yes, you will sin, but there is always mercy available to you in Christ Jesus our King. There is hope because “a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16). Sin no longer has the last word over us, because Christ made a way.  

Where our hearts lie can be seen through the fruit of our lives, but there is nothing you can do to separate you from the love of God (Romans 38:38-39). He longs to be chosen by us. He longs to be allowed into our hearts. He makes all things new (Revelation 12:5). Even sin. Even self-hate. Even the pride we struggle to let go of. 

Humility

God is working on my ego in this, my latest particular experience with sin. Ironically, this is actually something I asked Him to do; I prayed that I wanted my ego to be eliminated, kaput, bye-bye. Be careful what you pray for! I believe that my failed test is helping my prayer to be answered. This experience exposed my pride and revealed beyond a doubt that I am no better than anyone else. That it’s all Him, it’s none of me. No amount of hard work, self-determination, sense of righteousness, or even how close I “felt” to God lately makes me a good person in the slightest. Only God is Good (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). None of that stuff can save me or you from sin. Only Jesus can do that, so that no one may boast. Only Jesus. 

Thanks be to God.

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness (2 Corinthians 11:30).

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14). 

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Confidence in The Promises of God

I go through these times when my inner space is filled with noise to the point where being calm isn’t even an option. I’m still very much in the process of learning to actually use the anxiety-reducing “tools” that help–breathing, for instance. I’m not very good at that. Or staying still. Not so good at that either. Or limiting the amount of content I watch in a day or a week. That’s definitely a work in progress. I’m writing to myself today, as much as to you, my fantastic readers, because this week, I’m in one of those states where I just feel scattered. Maybe you’ve experienced this too. It might last a few hours or a few weeks, but these are the times when I need to remember the Truth of God’s promises the most. 

When I’m feeling this way, it’s easy to forget God entirely and focus on myself. This is what’s so dangerous about it. It’s easy to only hear the noise and feel that God isn’t there after all, and pretty soon my mind starts telling me that He’s not speaking to me, that He’s disappointed in me, or that He’s punishing me. My mind goes there, 0 to 60, despite all I’ve learned and all I’ve experienced and all the ways I’ve grown spiritually. I still need to pick up my cross daily, just as we all do. I’ve been reminded a lot of this lately, that it’s not a one-and-done deal to follow Jesus. I have to work at it every single day. On days like today, it’s especially difficult because the less my mind can focus, the more prone I can be to self-deprecating lies.  

One particular lie I’ve been wrestling with lately is, the more you do, the better you are. Thinking this is a guarantee of getting into a swirl like the one I’m in. When I’m busy doing things, I hurry. I hurry to try to make a deadline for work or hurry to make an appointment on time or (cringe) hurry through my devotion time. In the book by Alan Fadling, An Unhurried Life, he writes that when we hurry, we’re actually committing violence to ourselves. I think this is at least part of where my sense of being scattered comes from; that violence splinters something in me. It reduces me to being what I can do or produce in a day, instead of being myself. When I commit violence to myself, I’m doing exactly what my sinful nature wants: weakening not only my spirit but also my resolve to treat myself as a child of God, with respect. I start putting myself down, pushing myself to do even more, and losing myself in the process. Needless to say, this is an unhealthy cycle but getting out of it is easier said than done. 

Sure, breathing helps my body to calm down and deal with the adrenaline overload a bit better, it gets a little more oxygen into my overactive brain. Staying still, or stopping activity, can help to diffuse the stress of and in the moment. Limiting content can help keep my brain from being overstimulated. But, none of these tools actually address the real issue, only the symptoms. So, what REALLY helps? What is the real weapon against the lies that can splinter our souls? Along with prayer, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), is a powerful weapon. In the Word, God provides His promises. I take great comfort in them and the fact that they are True despite every swirl and every situation I may find myself in. Stopping to speak them aloud or meditate on them in my heart brings God into clearer focus. We must never forget to resist the devil, and he will flee… (James 4:7). Here I’d like to share three of my most treasured promises of God (there are hundreds!):

1. God promises to never leave you nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:5, Hebrews 13:5). 

When I started believing the Bible is True, I discovered something amazing–there are SO many promises to hope and have confidence in! To discover them while also believing they were True without a doubt was, and is, an unexplainably great gift. When I’m flooded with negative thoughts, remembering His promise never to leave us nor forsake us is a huge comfort. When I feel full of negativity and doubt, it’s easy to feel lost and that God isn’t there. But, the Truth is that He has already promised otherwise. He is there, even when we can’t see it or feel it or experience it, He is with us! We don’t have to do anything to earn it. As my wise sister Abby once told me, it’s not about what you can do; it’s about what He did for us.  

2. God promises that He has plans to prosper you and not to harm you, and to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

When I was experiencing violence to my soul, reading this promise and finally believing it was True was perhaps the most life-giving thing I’d ever heard. It was as if I’d never heard it before; I read it with a new heart, finally ready to receive what God had offered me long before I was even born. I had been at a point where I believed I had no future, that the odds were stacked against me, and that God, if He was there at all, didn’t care. How beautiful this promise was to see with fresh eyes! I had basically given up planning for a future, but took new hope in the promise that God really did have one in mind for me, for, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). 

3. God promises to restore all things (Acts 3:21).

The awareness I’ve gained of the world’s brokenness and my own brokenness can be difficult to bear at times. But thanks to God’s promise, I can rejoice that He will restore it all and that at His appointed time, [t]here will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4). My hope is in Him, who is bigger than any problem you or I may face, and who has promised to restore what has been broken in and around us. What incredible hope we can find in His promises to us! What reason to live and endure and bring His hope to this world! Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4). 

It takes faith to believe in the promises of God, it’s certainly not a popular thing. But I’ve tried it the other way and there was nothing for me there. No hope, no meaning, no future in sight. Stepping confidently forward in faith, everything changes and suddenly, all things are possible. Thanks be to God.  

Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. -Psalm 27:3

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her! -Luke 1:45

Further suggested reading:  An Unhurried Life by Alan Fadling

The Grace Upon Grace blog (www.graceupongrace.space) by Abby King

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3 Reasons I Believe the Bible is True

The Bible has been used in many ways throughout history to support human agendas that include violence or strict adherence to a set of isolating rules. Believers in the Bible still have a reputation for being judgmental, strict, and plain unfun. Talking about the Bible is not always easy because of its controversial past. 

I’ve heard the question asked, what is so compelling about an ancient book that’s been translated and adapted many times by men with their own biases, cultural understandings, and flaws? Why do we believe what it says and strive to model our lives by it?

I was taught stories from the Bible starting at a very young age–Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Joseph’s coat, Daniel and the lion’s den, Moses and Joshua leading the Israelites out of Egypt, Jesus, the cross, and the empty tomb. I believed these stories to be true, just like most of the other Christian homeschoolers I knew. Fast forward to age 23, and my new, well-educated neighbors in Washington, DC challenged my belief that following the Bible was the best way to live. Indeed, to many of them it was just another opiate to quiet the masses in the political power scheme. Their arguments were enough to make me question what I believed about the Bible. 

It wasn’t long before “because the Bible says so” just didn’t cut it for me anymore. I had heard too many arguments against the validity of the Bible stories I knew, and comparisons of them to other ancient plots that started to merge with that of other cultures and religions. I heard people dispute the Bible because of all the seeming contradictions within it. If one part wasn’t true, wouldn’t that discredit the whole thing? Believers in the Bible started to look an awful lot like that judgmental, out-of-touch stereotype I mentioned earlier. This stereotype, I later learned, does not at all fit the majority of believers. The believers I have met since are some of the most loving, kind people I know. What changed to make me overlook all the compelling criticisms I had heard? Why do I now believe that the Bible is True more than I ever did before? Here are just three reasons (and there are so many more!): 

1. Eyewitnesses1, 2

The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were written when eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection were still alive. If the accounts were fabricated, they could have easily been refuted by several hundred eyewitnesses (referred to in 1 Corinthians 15:1-6) and the Gospel texts wouldn’t have lasted until today. If you’ve ever served on a jury, imagine the testimony of 500 witnesses in a trial who all say the same thing about the events that took place leading up to an event. It would be impossible to dismiss their story as anything other than fact. When Jesus died, even His most loyal disciples didn’t believe anymore; it was only after they saw He had risen that they believed in Him. Jesus asked them to believe in Him, but none of them did until they saw the proof–He was alive. The Gospels also incorporate details that don’t necessarily serve the story or an underlying agenda, there are simply details that match memory patterns of people who are asked to recall events. Of course, the whole Bible is not written this way (see point #3), but just the fact that the Gospels are verifiable changed everything for me. Believing in Jesus no longer had to be a blind faith; this gave my faith something solid to stand on.   

2. Jesus: Psychotic or Truthful1, 2

If the Gospels are True, and Jesus is who He says He is in the Gospel accounts, the Son of God, His teaching must be taken seriously. It would be a stretch to think that He could do the ministry work He did, always demonstrate humility as He did, and share wisdom that ended confusion and dispute as He did if He was in a psychotic state, believing Himself to be someone He isn’t. It doesn’t add up that He would share truth about everything else but lie about who He is, and to suffer greatly for admitting it. 

3. Jesus’ Reverence for the Old Testament1, 2

If we take the Gospel accounts to be reliable, then we have to take Jesus as the Son of God, and again, take what He said while He lived seriously. The Gospel accounts show that Jesus treated the Old Testament with the utmost respect and quoted it often and authoritatively. He quoted it while battling temptation and He quoted it while on the cross. If the Son of God takes the Old Testament seriously, who then am I to dismiss it? However, I am not encouraging blind faith here, we always have freedom to wrestle with it, and what it means to us in our own lives. Indeed, this struggle is part of the journey of faith and the rub of our relationship with God that draws us closer to Him. Christianity is an informed faith; we aren’t asked to take it blindly. 

It is so important to learn to interpret the Bible in a way that considers the context of that particular book at that particular time in history in that particular culture. There is so much that we can miss here, especially when it comes to those seeming contradictions. The central message of the Bible is perhaps the most important context of all to remember, which can be understood in any language or culture–the Gospel of Jesus is central to the message of the Bible. It is the thread that runs throughout every one of its 66 books. To get hung up on too many details without this context will surely lead to the division and confusion we see today. If something doesn’t seem to align with the grace and forgiveness that is the Gospel, we must go back and check our interpretation. Otherwise you may end up like I did and so many others do, getting confused about who God is over just taking a line or two out of its proper context. 

I went from believing the Bible was a nice book with a lot of nice life lessons, to believing it was the reason for a lot of violence and hatred, to believing the Bible is God’s love letter to us. I pray that your wrestle with the Bible brings you to a place of rest in the grace and truth that God has given us with His Word.

“He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” -Revelation 19:13

References

  1. Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Penguin Books, 2018. 
  2. Stanley, Andy. Starting Point: A Conversation about Faith. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014.

Resource for further reading: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham

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How Belief is Our Most Powerful Tool

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

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What To Do When You Struggle with Faith

Here we are, the first blog post of Life with the King! I hope that here you will find something helpful for your own faith and truth-seeking journey, whether you’ve never thought much about faith before, had faith your whole life, or are somewhere in between. I’m excited to get started!

I don’t know about you, but my struggle with faith wasn’t pretty or quickly resolved with a conversation or two with a trusted friend.

While we all have doubts that come up from time to time, that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a long, difficult, painful struggle with faith in God. A struggle that led to seeking out the answers to life’s big questions from cultures completely different from mine. A struggle that led to my identity as a believer being completely wiped out, and being faced with the choice to rebuild it on something else. A struggle that led to laying in bed as often as possible without getting questioned about it.

If that’s you, wow do I feel for you. I have been there, and it is not easy. When I was able to share with someone what I was going through, people told me not to worry about it and not to take it so seriously. That it was all going to be okay. These platitudes, while surely well intended, came across as unhelpful and dismissive. I want you to know that your pain is completely valid, I get it, and you are incredibly courageous for being willing to ask the big questions. To be willing to change to know the truth. That takes guts.

I wouldn’t wish the type of deep, prolonged pain I experienced from struggling with faith for anyone, but for some of us, it is a reality. I can say now that I’m thankful for it; as the wise saying goes, pain may in fact be our best teacher. Neither I nor anyone else can take the faith journey for you. Only you can press on in this. You can and you must; know that I believe you can do it! In my own journey so far (thankfully we never actually stop journey-ing!) I learned several things that were helpful to remember when the road got unbearably difficult. Without further ado:

1. You are not alone; avoid isolating.

Although it may feel incredibly lonely at times, you are not alone if you struggle with faith. Many people have gone through similar journeys and have come out on the other side. The people in your life that maybe don’t fully understand, they are still there for you and they care about you. Allow them to be around you, even if it’s hard. Don’t isolate yourself in all your pain. Let me repeat that, do not isolate yourself in your pain. Whether they understand us or not we all need other people around us, especially when we are down, to show us that life can still be lived and that joy can still be found. Let those who you trust and who love you in, as much as you possibly can.

2. No one has completely figured God out.

As much as knowing that God does or doesn’t exist would be helpful in moving on with your life, no one knows 100%. Neither science nor religion can prove either way. If your journey has led you onto this unending path, you can put down your binoculars now, there is no proof. That is the maddening yet beautiful mystery we are all faced with. That is where facts end and faith can begin.

3. Love is not a feeling, it’s a choice.

You’ve probably heard the phrases before: Love God Love Others, or, God is Love. When you’re in the depths of struggling with faith, you doubt God’s love. You doubt your ability to love and put walls around your heart to avoid feeling any additional pain. But one of the most liberating things I’ve learned is that it’s not about a feeling at all. Love is a choice you make. Love is a choice God makes. Each one of us has been gifted with the ability to choose. We can choose love, we can choose forgiveness, we can choose belief. And it doesn’t have to be based on a feeling. Feelings come and go, but the truth lasts. We can base our choices on the truth. And what we choose to believe drives our very lives.

4. Start from the Truth.

When you’re questioning everything, it can be very difficult to find solid truth to stand on. I think this is what made my journey so painful, that there was suddenly no rhyme or reason to my day-to-day decisions, other than I felt like making them. There was no solid reason I could point to anymore of why I should avoid being influenced by something, for an extreme example, Satanic music; my only reasoning was that it would or wouldn’t make me feel good. I could do anything I wanted, with no boundaries. Sure, I could start at the laws of morality, but let’s be real, there are some gray areas there. I no longer trusted the Bible because I had let other peoples’ opinions about it influence me (cue hearing a mockery of the story of Noah’s ark for about 10 solid minutes, and picking apart Adam and Eve, thus discounting the whole text as unreliable). I found a very important piece of truth after attending a philosophy roundtable discussion. I came away from our discussion that week on the philosophy of death feeling completely torn apart emotionally. Afterward, I kept playing one thing over and over in my head, something a woman shared with the group about telling her kids there was nothing beyond death,

“When they were old enough, I told them that we die, and when we do we become part of the earth.” This bothered me deeply for days.

Suddenly, and without warning me about it first, “There has to be more than this,” popped into my head. The best way I can describe it is that it bypassed my thought processes and was communicated straight into my heart. My nugget of truth. My spirit had been uncomfortable, unwilling, to accept the woman’s philosophy (which happened to be the group’s majority belief). No, there has to be some meaning to life and death. All this pain and all this joy and the billions of journeys that are happening in people’s hearts all over the globe, there is absolutely no way it’s all for nothing. I simply couldn’t accept otherwise. Perhaps this nugget helps you, perhaps you’ll discover your own. What is it that you just can’t get past? Start there.

5. Keep going.

Even though it’s hard, and it may be one of the hardest experiences you ever go through, always keep going. Keep learning about yourself, keep seeking out answers, and you will have a rich array of experience and wisdom to share with others. Avoid staying stuck in one spot, don’t give up on all the other areas of your life because of one thing you can’t get past. If you need to stop probing in one area of your life, start working in another until you’re ready to come back to it. Usually, they don’t all get resolved at once. This process takes time; stay patient with it and with yourself. Always keep growing, and treasure your gift to choose where you place your focus and attention. Never give your gift of choice up or let anyone make your decisions for you. You’ve got this.

I got to a point where my hope and my joy had died along with my faith and couldn’t be resurrected by my own effort. In my darkest moment, during what poets, religious scholars, and philosophers have called the “dark night of the soul,” I gave up the control that can so easily keep faith at bay and finally let go of the skepticism and the need to understand it all. Immediately, God’s love rushed into my soul, and I’ve never taken it for granted since. My faith was restored as a tiny mustard seed, but it was there. And it grew. My life changed. I changed. Having faith takes everything you have, what you once thought about yourself, the direction you had set and planned for your life, and the way you see the world. But it’s worth it. God is so worth it all.

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Resources for further reading: The Reason for God by Timothy Keller; Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

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