Before my wife and I were married, we asked each other what was the biggest fear we had about one another.
My fear was she would be too indecisive, and would not be satisfied with the choices she made throughout our life together.
Her largest fear about me was that I wasn’t Christian enough for her ideals of a husband and a family leader.
Through the years our fears played out in a spectacular fashion.
Facing the Doubt
Although my brother and I were raised as Christians, we were not raised in the church. We worshipped there with our father and briefly attended Sunday School for a portion of our lives. My father credited Jesus for surviving his stroke at the age of 35. We were taught to give gratitude to The Lord in all things. As with most Christians, I harbored doubt, but as most Christians would tell you, doubt is the among the worst traits to feed for it is the very antithesis of faith.
Throughout my youthful years, I consciously ignored my doubts and leaned not on my own understanding.
During my early 20’s, after one particularly rousing reading of the bible, I even thought the good book revealed to me the very purpose of life itself – that the purpose of this life is to choose how you would spend the rest of eternity. How everything else this life has to offer must pale in comparison to either the joy or pain that awaited us all. I would cry at night for all of the countless souls throughout eternity who were destined to make the wrong choice. I was a Christian.
I still had my doubts, but for most of my life – chalked it up to the feebleness of my limited human mind, until my wife and I started thinking about a family.
My future child would surely ask me about Jesus. And they would ask about Muhammed, and Buddha, and Vishnu, and Joseph Smith, and even David Koresh. How would I respond? How would I explain one person’s truth over another when I didn’t completely understand it myself? How would I look them in the eye and tell them what was true?
At that time, I told myself that many Christian men much smarter than I have certainly dealt with these issues and came to conclusions I could rest on. All I needed to do was face my doubts and do some research. In the age of the Internet, with knowledge ready at my fingertips, I set out on a journey which would change me in ways I had not even thought possible.
Self-Acknowledgement
About a year into my research, I had printouts all over the office – articles, letters, emails, quotes, highlighted biblical verses, and more. I had books from C.S. Lewis and apologist William Lane Craig strewn about. I couldn’t get enough.
I also couldn’t get straight answers that satisfied my questions around divinity, predestination, life after death, and the condemnation of other world faiths. My wife watched and supported my new interest. She even picked out a book she believed would be of particular interest to me, Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. That book introduced me to the term “intellectual honesty” and made me start seriously looking into the other side of the argument. If I was to understand the nonbeliever’s way of thinking, I had to read their words as they had written them, not as paraphrased by apologists.
That would be like listening to a Muslim state all the reasons why Christianity is a false religion without ever discussing it with a Christian. It’s just not intellectually honest.
This floodgate of new literature turned my world upside down. It challenged such strongly held beliefs so thoroughly that I could feel walls shattering around my psyche. My very sense of self was being challenged. I felt I didn’t know who I was and read voraciously more work. I vowed for every apologist book I had read, I would read its counter argument. It was terrifying.
That process lasted at least another year.
I reread the bible – this time in a whole new context.
I cried.
You can’t unlearn things.
Faith is something that is experienced. Christianity can not be intellectualized because our definitive minds would try to rationalize everything and we either limit God and put him in a box based on our own limited experiences as human beings or try to eliminate him entirely. Certainly God does exist. The unexplainable such as the making of the sun, moon, stars, human beings, animals, etc. We all did not just evolve from one being or one cell. If you ask God to open your heart to receive his love instead of trying to rationalize everything in your mind, then you will see that He exists and that Jesus is real. The bible says that hell has enlarged itself. Satan has caputured your heart and those of unbelievers and he will do everything in his power to bring you down to hell with him. I rebuke Satan off of your life and I pray that God will enter your heart and show you the TRUTH about His word. Heaven and Hell is real and it does exist and don’t wait until its too late for you to get saved. Jesus died for us so that we would have eternal life in heaven. I am writing this to you because I too grew up in a household that didn’t believe but I had an experience with Jesus that was life changing and now I know JESUS IS REAL. My prayer for you is that you would have an experience and encounter with JESUS that is LIFE CHANGING. That you would accept HIM into your heart.
There are ways to overcome within the marriage. Seek wisdom always, and it resides inside our hearts. The Spirit is within so wisdom is within. Here is help for the married Christian or skeptic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQXiBbg8PQ4&list=PLv_mPC6G9j1UrgH5Ih-2LuYBaxZfkO–s
I agree whole heartedly, you cannot intellectualized christianity, and rationalize Jesus Christ in your mind. True christianity is by faith and believing by faith,and you live by faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died for all of our sins that we may have eternal life with him. This can only be revealed to you by God by reading his Holy Word (BIBLE). By reading and believing by faith his Holy Word you will develop a personal relationship with him, and truely know for yourself that Jesus Christ is real. Satan has gotten him where he wants him and where he wants all of us, which is to have doubt in what we believe, and end up in hell with him. Satan is already condemned to hell and he wants to take as many of us with him. I also pray for him and others that Jesus Christ will reveal himself to them and touch their hearts and comeback or come to Christ, you will never regret it if you truely give your life to Christ.
The simple fact that his wife said that he couldn’t be a Christian if he didn’t believe in certain things, BUT she loves Him that’s a clear sign of Christianity. He thought she would pack up and go with someone else but she’s showing Gods love in real time by not leaving him but remaining with him and treating him no different than before. This is real Christianity!
Christianity is intellectualized all the time, so why can’t unbelief? Double standard.
You’re right – I’m a lucky guy.
Do see how ridiculous this is? You say that a clear sign of Christianity that she loves him? Your god must not be a Christian because he refuses to forgive humans simply because they don’t believe in him. He is jealous and sentences them for ETERNITY without a chance of parole. How idiotic is that?
The very words you use, are confusing. God does not refuse to forgive. People choose not to believe in Him and thus condemn themselves. Condemnation comes as a result of a oerson’s choice not to accept Him. The evidence of His existence is clearly seen through nature, if nothing else. And if you can see the rising of the sun which none can explain its origin is or the sea which stops where he commands, but still don’t acknowledge him, then that is your choice.
Who would force someone to be in a relationship they don’t want to be in. So if you deny Him, why would you then want or expect him to forgive you? The death of Christ was big enough wide enough and deep enough for ALL to be saved but it is only applied to those that want to spend eternity with Him. So condemnation to Hell or conversely entrance to heaven, is an individual choice.
I pray you rethink your assertions, perhaps you received some bad “church” teaching. But read for yourself and you will see your assumptions might have some problems and peace is available as you search Him.
God Bless
There is a chance,the chance is called Jesus Christ,who does forgive and in exchange for eternal damnation you receive eternal life. Faith is the key that opens that door.If you choose not to believe ,that is your choice,and choice is your God given right. Regardless whether you believe or not,God’s love remains the same for you as it does for me.Eternal damnation is man’s choice,not God’s.
I don’t think he was questioning whether a Higher Power exists. But what name you choose to call God and what the author chooses, makes him no less of a human. You can’t force your beliefs or someone that has chosen to pick up additional resources and do research outside of the Bible.
The majority of you only quote what religion has taught you. This is the reason we are constantly at war as a country – simply because we don’t respect others freedom to worship as they choose. How many of you really know who King James was? And why was his version of the Bible chosen? How many stories of a resurrection came before the story of Jesus? I challenge you to learn some history outside of the Bible and focus more on spirtuality rather than the rules of a particular religion.
Most of you are only quoting what you were taught and have never done any research outside of the Bible on your own. You have to give respect to someone’s opinion who took the time to do so.
I can’t believe a Christian website would post this. There’s numerous websites for non-believers but I didn’t want to see things like this on a Christian website. Obviously I wouldn’t go to an Islamic website and leave a negative comment because their faith is personal. But to go to a Christian site and see this. Wow. And then not moderate the comments. Unbelievable. This is about building up Christian families I thought, not entertaining debates about the faith of the readers! Wow.