I came across the following while researching for the Lesson Study which I have to teach today. What struck me was that until six months ago I really didnt believe, I heard all the teachings in my youth, went to college surrounded by my classmates, went through life shielded by friends and family that were adventist and never had a reason to doubt or a reason to learn to believe until now! So the following hit me like a brick, God isn't just going to say 'you believe I exist so here is eternal life', I really do have to flex my spiritual muscles and believe personally and have a intimate relationship with Jesus and not just wait for eternal life to strike me as I slept in the back pew as was my custom.......
:
"When my dad left the church, he started telling me about the doubts he had harbored about the Adventist church through his years as a pastor. He made fun of Ellen White, making me extremely uncomfortable, to say the least. The man who had been the spiritual head of not only my family but of several churches recanted everything he had professed to believe. He drifted from church to church and at times gave up on God altogether, claiming he no longer believed that God existed.
Naturally, this made me question some of my own beliefs. Mostly, I was defiant. I did not want to believe that he was right, so I didn’t think about it much. I dismissed his misgivings as bitterness because of the way he felt he was ostracized by old friends and colleagues in the church. My father’s crisis of belief shook me, but not enough for me to reconsider my own faith.
Years passed in which I didn’t really think about religion but took my faith and my salvation for granted. When I got to college, I could no longer take anything for granted. My relationships with friends and family changed. I wasn’t the social butterfly or leader that I had been in high school. I didn’t know where I fit into college, church or religion. I still loved the Adventist religion, the people in it, the doctrines that I thought were beautiful, but I felt disconnected from all of it.
While doing research for a religion class I came across a Web site made by former Adventists, and I started reading. My heart beat faster, and my throat constricted as I read the accusations that were posed: Ellen White was not a prophet; the investigative judgment teaching had no basis in scripture; the Ten Commandments, and therefore the Sabbath, were done away with at Christ’s death. I was terrified. Although I didn’t want to read, I sat transfixed in front of the computer screen.
After more than an hour, I finally left and called my fiancé, Michael. Fear gripped my heart like a mousetrap. I wept as I told Michael about the things I had read.
“Does this make you doubt God?” he asked me.
“No, but what if we’re wrong about everything we’ve believed? It’s scary to think that we could have all been led so far from the truth,” I answered.
That Web site and the ensuing conversation with Michael led me on a journey to discover what I believed. I talked to my mother, sister, friends and teachers about why they believed in the Adventist church. I asked them if they had heard about these claims, and nearly all of them had. “So why are you still an Adventist?” I asked.
Each person had a different answer, but what it all boiled down to was that each person had chosen to believe. There is no hard proof for Christianity. We cannot be absolutely sure that there is a God or that Jesus rose from the dead. We do not know without a doubt that he will come back again.
I decided to start with the basics: Do I believe in God? I know that I have to, because without him my life has no purpose. Do I believe that Jesus died so that I could live forever? Once again, I can’t know for certain, but I want to believe, and so I choose to believe. Is the Adventist church led by God? In this area I do see evidence of God’s leading. I see humble, godly people all around me: my mother, my teachers, pastors and employers who are part of the Adventist faith. God is leading in the lives of the people who are leading this church.
I still have questions, but I think God can handle my questions. I have chosen to believe that God is leading in the Adventist church and in my life. In his book Life of Pi, Yann Martel describes the faith journey of an Indian boy named Pi who embraces Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. Pi says that doubt has a purpose, “Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if he burst out from the Cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on.”
I read Life of Pi during the time that I was searching for answers, and one sentence struck me. “To choose doubt as a philosophy of Life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” So I choose to believe. " excerpted from Learning to Believe by Angela Schafer.
:"When my dad left the church, he started telling me about the doubts he had harbored about the Adventist church through his years as a pastor. He made fun of Ellen White, making me extremely uncomfortable, to say the least. The man who had been the spiritual head of not only my family but of several churches recanted everything he had professed to believe. He drifted from church to church and at times gave up on God altogether, claiming he no longer believed that God existed.
Naturally, this made me question some of my own beliefs. Mostly, I was defiant. I did not want to believe that he was right, so I didn’t think about it much. I dismissed his misgivings as bitterness because of the way he felt he was ostracized by old friends and colleagues in the church. My father’s crisis of belief shook me, but not enough for me to reconsider my own faith.
Years passed in which I didn’t really think about religion but took my faith and my salvation for granted. When I got to college, I could no longer take anything for granted. My relationships with friends and family changed. I wasn’t the social butterfly or leader that I had been in high school. I didn’t know where I fit into college, church or religion. I still loved the Adventist religion, the people in it, the doctrines that I thought were beautiful, but I felt disconnected from all of it.
While doing research for a religion class I came across a Web site made by former Adventists, and I started reading. My heart beat faster, and my throat constricted as I read the accusations that were posed: Ellen White was not a prophet; the investigative judgment teaching had no basis in scripture; the Ten Commandments, and therefore the Sabbath, were done away with at Christ’s death. I was terrified. Although I didn’t want to read, I sat transfixed in front of the computer screen.
After more than an hour, I finally left and called my fiancé, Michael. Fear gripped my heart like a mousetrap. I wept as I told Michael about the things I had read.
“Does this make you doubt God?” he asked me.
“No, but what if we’re wrong about everything we’ve believed? It’s scary to think that we could have all been led so far from the truth,” I answered.
That Web site and the ensuing conversation with Michael led me on a journey to discover what I believed. I talked to my mother, sister, friends and teachers about why they believed in the Adventist church. I asked them if they had heard about these claims, and nearly all of them had. “So why are you still an Adventist?” I asked.
Each person had a different answer, but what it all boiled down to was that each person had chosen to believe. There is no hard proof for Christianity. We cannot be absolutely sure that there is a God or that Jesus rose from the dead. We do not know without a doubt that he will come back again.
I decided to start with the basics: Do I believe in God? I know that I have to, because without him my life has no purpose. Do I believe that Jesus died so that I could live forever? Once again, I can’t know for certain, but I want to believe, and so I choose to believe. Is the Adventist church led by God? In this area I do see evidence of God’s leading. I see humble, godly people all around me: my mother, my teachers, pastors and employers who are part of the Adventist faith. God is leading in the lives of the people who are leading this church.
I still have questions, but I think God can handle my questions. I have chosen to believe that God is leading in the Adventist church and in my life. In his book Life of Pi, Yann Martel describes the faith journey of an Indian boy named Pi who embraces Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. Pi says that doubt has a purpose, “Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if he burst out from the Cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on.”
I read Life of Pi during the time that I was searching for answers, and one sentence struck me. “To choose doubt as a philosophy of Life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” So I choose to believe. " excerpted from Learning to Believe by Angela Schafer.
