Why are you a Christian?

I've sometimes wondered what I would say if I was asked that. There are so many self-righteous, self-serving people calling themselves Christians who have made it look bad, that people now mockingly ask if anything good can come from being one. “Damn your superior attitudes and damn your tyrannical God,” they say.

It's a journey that has made my convictions what they are thus far. When I was taught about God I felt I was glad there was a higher power watching over me and my loved ones, that we weren't prey to random chance. I was glad that death was not the end, that we would see the people we lost in a place called Heaven. I was also frightened. Frightened of being left out of those promises. Above all I was frightened of Hell. These are only a few of the motives I possessed. However I guess you can say I'm biased. I do not want to disbelieve in God for fear of death and the erasing of myself from existence.

So why Christianity over all the other religions? I guess it started out that it's just what I was taught, but also that I believed it to be a religion of love, which I saw my family as a model of. But though you could say I took an irrational leap of faith, it was not always to be like that, especially after I read The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel. A one-time atheist, he described in his book how through various searching he discovered how historically possible it was for Jesus to have lived, worked miracles, and even rise from the dead. Only then did I begin to think Christianity was not the fantasy my rationality constantly denied.

Reading the Bible, however, I was always—and still am—presented with challenges. I thought he was a God of love, but then by his will lots of seemingly innocent people were killed. I want to be myself, but sometimes being myself just doesn't cut it when mirroring Christ in my life, as his followers are called to do. The Apostles describe conflicts and their answers so simply, but when I put down my Bible, and face life again, things become once more hopelessly complicated. Followers of Christ are supposed to have this Holy Spirit, but when I reflect on the way I've acted sometimes, I doubt I have anything like it. Sometimes I doubt I even belong to Christ. When I compare my life to the lives of his disciples, even though they had challenges, I feel like a hopeless wreck of a confused person.

So what's the answer? To throw out the parts of the Bible that disagree with us and keep only the stuff we like? That's the selfish way. That's the cowardly way. How do we avoid lies if we ourselves hang on to truth-insensitive assertions? And when I say truth, I don't mean what someone somewhere irrationally decided was truth. When I say truth, I mean getting to know the personage supposedly behind these writings for what he is, and uncovering the facts without imposing our clever but fallacy-ridden interpretations on them.

The key is coming to grips with the truth while at the same time uncovering it. We must seek to model Christ in our lives always no matter how much we fail. We must realize the sovereignty of his choices. We must realize how knowledgeable to this planet's situation he is. We must humble ourselves to the place of disciple, and stop trying to be the master. And we must be patient—with ourselves and, especially, with one another.