Believer
Recently I've been listening to the latest Mary Mary album, and while I enjoyed a lot of it, I take issue with the lyrics of one song in particular: the opening song, "Believer".Why? I have a problem with lyrics that more or less come across as "God has spared my life and that's why I believe", because it begs the question: what about when God doesn't spare a loved one, or when you go through some trial or hardship - do you not believe then? Do you only believe in your own experiences, or is belief wider than that? And is belief in God limited to God "sparing" your life from some sort of drama?
People grow through and from experiences. I won't negate them and say they won't "firm up" people's faith, but it's the difficult times, where you can't see God, when you begin to doubt, that tests that belief.
I believe because "hope does not disappoint". I believe because I know that at the end of it all, someone greater than me is seeing me through while I'm falling apart. I believe that despite my doubts and fears, there's something in me that will not let go and will not lose perspective because of that belief that there is a God who loves me unconditionally. I believe that unconditional love is real, even if I can't literally feel or touch it, I know it is as physical as the air around me, I can see and feel it whenever I walk to the station and watch the clouds, or feel the rain or heat. It is greater than the love I feel for the object of my affection, and stronger than the urges and emotions that make us human.
I am a believer because I believe that there is a God, who is beyond understanding and yet can be understood. I am a believer because one day the whole church Christian thing became real to me and made sense. I'd been doing church for years and one day, the penny dropped - suddenly everything became clear, everything I had been taught but ignored made sense. And that is what started me on my journey of faith.
Everyone has to trod their own road to faith. I'm one of those people who do not believe that all roads lead to God - it is not a matter of which route a person takes to take to get there, so long as you get there. And the end result is that we meet on the same road.
