| False Faith
Everyone knows what the kind of false faith
where you believe in something you shouldn't, but I'm talking about
something different. I’m talking about false faith by preaching
something and acting upon something different.
At one point or another, about three years
ago, I did this too. It's not something someone tries to do. I was
preaching about God, and his love and how he's always there for
everyone. For two years I preached this. And came to realize in
the summer of '99 that it was all a lie. I realized that I didn't
trust God in anyway what so ever. Someone brought it to my attention
at the beginning of a week of summer camp. For a week I struggled
with it.
How can I, a full-blown Christian not believe
the words that are coming out of my mouth? I guess it's because
every problem I've ever had, I solved myself. I never went to anyone
for help. I was strong, and I could handle it myself. I didn't need
anyone's help. Yea, I was there to consult people, but whenever
I needed help, I would turn them away. Making it even harder for
God to work through someone to comfort me. Finally, the last night
of the camp I was at, I saw that I wasn't strong enough to figure
it all out on my own. I walked out of the chapel after a service
and wanted to go back. But I couldn't. I didn't want to show that
something had broken down my barriers, and that something had gotten
to me. I ended up walking back into the chapel after walking around
the camp for a little while. I just wanted to be alone. I wanted
to think on my own.
But God didn't have it planned that way. One
of the counselors from my church had seen me walk in. She approached
me and asked if I wanted to talk. I didn't know what to do or say,
and then, it all came out. I told her all about how I had been a
Christian for so many years, but all the time I was preaching it,
I never believed it. I couldn't believe that this God was helping
me every step of the way. I was strong enough, and I didn't need
his help. He could go and help someone else who needed it. I was
the strong one. I could stand up to anything. When I realized that
I was wrong. I was standing up against myself. I was standing in
the way of my beliefs.
Now, not everyone is going to be standing in
the way of themselves, it's just how I am. The way I was brought
up. To believe I was strong and I could stand up to anything that
blocked my path. But how do you defeat something that isn't trying
to hurt you? After realizing that, and talking about it, I figured
out that it was something that I should have realized long ago,
and wasn't going to fix itself until I admitted that I was wrong,
and that I couldn't do it on my own.
Finally, after that, things cleared up
a bit, but not immediately. Nothing ever works that way; it's never
that simple. God had worked his way, now it was my turn to hold
up my part of the bargain. I had to change. It took me a little
less than a year. I started listening more, paying more attention
to myself and what people were saying when they talked about God,
and I started listening to what my head was telling me, and stopped
believing that I was some strong fort that nothing could break down.
Because that was just what Satan wanted. He wanted me to believe
that I didn't need God, and that I was strong enough without him.
But no one is. No one can survive in the world we live in today
with the way things are. Everywhere you turn, there's someone bashing
a Christian, bashing God, and what we believe in. How are you going
to stand up for something that you have everyone else fooled that
you believe in, when you really don't know what you're standing
up for? It doesn't work that way. God sees around everything we
do, we can't fool him or the good he does in our lives. We can't
fool him into believing that we whole-heartedly believe in him when
we know it's not true ourselves.
|
