I myself have never really felt a deep need to write anything to share… until now. The fact of the matter is that I am young in both life and faith. My theory on God’s character changes as I try to figure I only just being to scratch the surface of the complexities of God. My hypothesis is; God is powerful but kind, he is active but does not work in ways which are immediate or even apparent to the simplicity of the human mind, and for us to truly act how he intends we must first know that we are ignorant and then be active in seeking understanding of his character and word.
I am 20 years old and just starting to dive into the Biochemistry at my university in the Pacific Northwest. I am a Christian and have been most of my life but I am now struggling to learn about what that means. I am scientific and logical. The fact that I look at faith a bit differently is a large reason I feel that I need to share my way of thinking. Faith is spiritual and I have a difficult time trying to explain with any type of logic. As far as I see it a belief in having a personal relationship with God is the most farfetched thing to ever believe in or at least that is what I thought about a year and a half ago. I moved here to school in 2010 having never thought of my faith, of what I really thought was real. I was apathetic and ignorant. From what I have seen in the news and history from church I would never call myself a Christian. It’s amazing how much hatred I had for a group of people I knew nothing about. Don’t get me wrong I grew up in Boy scouts and would call myself a Jesus believer but never a Christian.
But I digress, I moved in with two guys that were some of the most Christian people I had ever met. Then I was instantly pulled into a group of friends whose lives revolved around this Bible book, this person who has been dead for thousands of years. When I say their lives revolved around this I mean some woke up at 7 each morning to memorize parts of the bible, and basically all of them throughout the year spent a large amount of time sitting in a circle robotically reading that book. I thought they were all crazy sitting in large gatherings singing songs about words that I for one did not understand. I mean common ‘Grace’ sounded more like a name than a thing to me. I listened to Friday night Church services about faith and picking up your cross. Quite frankly if you are confused by what I am writing that is exactly how I felt. I felt ignorant, stupid, and most of all, lost. It was like being from America and being friends with people that only spoke Latin. Let me clarify, I could understand some of it but most was like what I am writing now, gibberish. I knew nothing, nada, squat. I began to feel empty, as if I was missing something, maybe not so much empty as hungry. I wanted knowledge to fill my void. I wanted into the club, but not without knowing what I was getting into. If I was going to truly follow someone I was not going to do it blindly from ignorance.
I then had to put in some effort. I sought help from my best friend, Chelsea. See Chelsea has been a Christian her whole life. She has been tested through fire and from what I saw in her I would want to be a Christian whom was similar to her, Strong and independent but loving and open-minded. I knew a few things; one was that reading the bible was necessary. This is probably the most important thing for you all to understand about me, I didn’t just want to read the Bible I wanted to understand it. I wanted to be able to scientifically justify what happens in that damn book. And it is the hardest thing about my faith, where I am the most fragile. So I dove into Matthew, the first book I will ever fully read of the Bible, and it didn’t seem as ridiculous as I previously thought. With the help of Chelsea I looked for meaning, but strove for understanding.
Now a year later my faith has been shaken to its core. Broken down from the comfortable happiness by a tragedy in the dorm in which I live in. The point of my writing is this, I want to show a logical and clear representation of what I think faith is and what a belief in Jesus looks like to the left brained individual. I would like to warn you if you read my blog don’t expect to see, rainbows and butterflies, conventional Christian beliefs, and a spineless statement about my faith. I don’t expect anybody to think as I do or even to like it. I plan to share with you all a true representation of how I experience and understand God in my life. For my God hypothesis has yet to be proven but is tested each and every day.
Following blindly is not following at all,
Cyrus Schaaf
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/
http://3chronicles.blogspot.com
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