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Nominal Christian, Practical Atheist

February 8, 2009

Atheism Have you ever noticed that God frequently will bring something to your attention one day and then reinforce it from an entirely different direction the next? Or am I the only one? Didn’t think so.

This morning’s message at church was tied in to the ongoing Truth Project that we’re studing in our small groups. Today’s topic was Theology (Who Is God?). Pastor Del was speaking about our possible responses to God. Many people recognize that there are two extremes: you can be an atheist, denying the existence of God, or a believer.

But there is a middle ground that I hadn’t really considered before today, and that is what Pastor Del calls “practical atheism.” Essentially this is believing that God exists (at least potentially), but living your life as though He didn’t.

Ouch. How many “Christians” are in fact pratical atheists? How much of my life is lived this way? I suspect this is part of the problem I’ve been having with getting the habit of prayer and scripture into my life. If I truly believed in the existence of God and His desire for a relationship with me, wouldn’t I want to spend every possible moment with Him? Wouldn’t I want to hear from the creator of the universe about His plan for me? Wouldn’t I want to read about his system for organizing my life and growing my spirit?

The only conclusion I can draw is that on some level I’ve been a practical atheist all my life. Sixteen years ago I made a decision to follow Christ, but I don’t think my behavior or my attitude have quite caught up with that decision. How far could I have come in these sixteen years if I’d been more receptive and more willing to surrender and grow?

Even when I was behaving as though I didn’t believe in God, the miracle is that He believed—and believes—in me. He has been faithful when I had little faith. He has been true when my life was filled with lies. He will take me where I am, and I can start allowing Him to change me today.

Like I said yesterday, new habits can’t be layered on top of old ones. I have to first do away with the old, let go of the things that aren’t pleasing to God, trust Him, and truly, passionately believe in Him. Everything else has to grow out of that.

Photo Credits: Atheism via Wikipedia, 3/29/07

Also tagged Atheism, Existence of God, Growth, Hypocrisy, My Past – No Comments

Falling in Love with Scripture Again

February 7, 2009

Reading scriptures

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on getting my work life under control. Teaching in three buildings means that, for one thing, something I need is frequently not where I am. It’s also a significant challenge keeping track of all the various things I need to take care of, since in many cases I can only work on certain things when I’m in a particular school.

I began reading a book that has been on my list for a while: Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Within a week, I have already begun to change my habits and routines at work, gathering all of my “stuff” into one place, figuring out the most efficient way of storing and maintaining it, and how to keep track of my projects and to-dos in a way that will work despite being in a different place every day.

It struck me as I reflected on the last week how easily my mindset and routine started to shift into new patterns. This is hardly an established habit yet, but I can already see changes in my thinking and the way I see many of the things that come across my desk at school. It’s even starting to seep into my activities at home.

So why is it so hard for me to establish new patterns in my spiritual life? Why when I start a new habit of daily prayer and Bible reading does it only last a few days before drifting back to nearly non-existent? I think it’s because, like all of the prior “organization systems” I’ve tried to use, these habits were simply laid down on top of the rest of my life. Nothing fundamentally changed inside me—I simply tried to add a new system or routine to the existing ones.

Our small group has been going through The Truth Project. Its tagline is “Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?” One of the things I think I believe is that I want to get to know God and grow more like Christ every day. But do I really believe that this is really something that can happen, or do I just say it because it’s what good Christians say? I think perhaps my failure to make this habit work is because I’ve been trying to fit it into my life instead of rethinking my life and building it around a relationship with God.

Photo Credits: Reading scriptures by Amanda Bills Photography, 5/17/07