There is a misconception of the word faith embedded into our humanistic ways of reasoning that can hide a person from themselves, serving as a cornerstone of a faith built on shifting sands. This misconception is that logic should justify our faith at every corner. Everyone around me at the time I wrote the lines above would say I was a believer: a faithful, God-fearing man. Little knew I was a wreck inside, at war with my own thoughts and reasoning, contradicting myself on the outset of every thought that passed through my mind. I relied on logic to justify my faith, which means if something I learned from the bible contradicted the world around me or my ways of reasoning, I would question the existence of all that I thought I placed my life in. After weeks of intellectual rigor, I looked into the mirror and began honestly questioning myself: the scariest thing a person can do. Being honest with yourself can beget seemingly horrifying consequences, but it must be done in order to progress in a faith rooted in something real. I asked myself: Do you really believe? Fighting against honesty, I said yes, and then immediately said no.
Weeks later, I stumbled across Ephesians 2:8 which reads: ” For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
After realizing what true faith was, believing in something of which there is no logical proof of, this put everything into perspective. I could not believe if I relied on some sort of human, philosophical justification for my faith, for that was not faith at all. If a human’s litmus test for Christianity is justifying it through logic, then there is no faith, but rather a fickle time bomb ready to explode when triggered by any form of worldly, and even adolescent, reasoning. But a faith from God is a faith that transcends all human logic, a faith placed in a believer by God that cannot be oppressed. Faith is believing in that which there is no logical proof of; therefore expect worldly logic to contradict your beliefs at times. God-given faith is faith that permits a person with tears in their eyes and a world falling around them to look into the mirror, when not a soul is looking or listening, and tell themselves they believe, and know that they are heard by God.
