This week I asked a friend for prayer. I didn’t really approach him with a specific prayer request in mind, just a story about how I stepped out in faith, it didn’t work out, I hurt many and broke friendships, and I’ve never been able to completely trust God since then (and deep down, I was probably angry at God too). I expressed to my friend that I had absolutely no idea how to get back to a place of faith with free abandon. As he prayed for me, I found it strange that he didn’t pray exactly for the issue I presented to him (no “God, please mend these relationships” and no “God, please heal their pain”. Instead, he asked God to give me the wisdom to see past the lies being fed to me that He is not worthy of my trust.
During this prayer, I realized the real road block isn’t some two-year-old issue with people who already forgave and forgot; the only thing hindering me from trusting and loving my God is my own heart and mindset.
As a junior higher and underclassmen in high school, I accepted God’s Word as true. I believed every ounce of ink in the Bible down to the punctuation marks, and my biggest struggle was forgiving that girl for spreading rumors or trying to obey my mother by getting home before curfew.
Now………. Well, now it’s different. I have unknowingly adopted a new methodology to life. I read a novel, dissect the plot, make an inference, write an essay. I observe a problem, predict an outcome, perform the experiment, collect some data, analyze the results, reach a conclusion. I follow the archetype. Honestly, I’ve become enamored with the archetype. It’s reliable. I can trust the results to be true because the exploration is entirely my own. I trust myself. It’s safe. Sometimes I thank God for my fascination with questioning, analyzing, and debunking the world around me.
…And sometimes I cannot help but think my pragmatic reasoning impedes, and ultimately destroys, any inkling of faith I have left.
Sure, AP English, Physics, History, and Calculus beget high SAT scores, college acceptances, and a sense of independence, but I cannot escape the AP-brainwashing I’ve undergone:
do not accept any statement as truth until you can prove it for yourself to be true.
When someone says “It’s okay to mess up, Jesus is still there; you just have to seek Him,” when I read ” ‘Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him. I will protect him for he acknowledges my name’ ” (Psalm 91:14), as much as I want to, my mind will not let me accept these truths without skepticism. And because I’m skeptical, I test these things without faith, and my conclusions all too often suggest these things are empty truths.
My prayer is that I can reconcile my academia with my faith. My prayer is that I will once again learn to wholeheartedly love and trust the One and Only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
