Faith Makes Life More Interesting and Less Scary

Some of you may know that I consider myself Christian. Although I do not always attend a church or practice faith with others, the faith remains. Many people in the circles I travel in look askance at faith. They think of religion as the opiate of the masses. For many, this is because they have been scorned by modern day Phareses for their various "sins" leading to the common response of "if you don't want me, then fine, I don't want to get in there anyway!"

My own personal journey to faith was a highly rational one. I was not converted by another believer. I simply observed the path of my life and applied some deductive reasoning to it. I found that the events of my life seemed for form a coherent narrative indicative of a guiding hand. It was only years later that I came to read the Gospels and realized that the kind, loving, faithful God described there is the same one I had deduced.

I have faith that my life is guided by God. Not directed. Not controlled. Just guided. Maintaining the same rational approach, I can well admit that I cannot prove that God is guiding my life. Perhaps I am simply reading into a series of coincidences. Humans are very good at finding patterns where none exist. However, by having faith, I can believe that as long as I set my feet on the path, I will be guided the right direction. When you get right down to it, faith or not, the strategy is the same: do the best I can with whatever comes before me. The only difference is that by believing, I can stroll forward without fear.

There are many things that could go catastrophically wrong in my life. My car has over 140,000 miles on it. I do not presently have health insurance. A major car issue or a health issue would pretty much be game over for me, but I believe that there is a purpose for me, and, if God has a purpose for me, he's going to make sure that something as simple as a vehicular issue or lack of insurance will not sideline his plan.

What if I'm wrong? Who cares? I would rather spend decades happily believing that the hand of God will lead me to good things than spend those same decades worrying what might happen, especially since it is well recognized that focusing on good things causes good things and focusing on bad things causes bad things. What if there is no God but my very faith in him makes it real? Would that be so bad?