The Why Behind The Sky

To believe or not to believe… Now, that is an interesting thought to ponder. It depends on what the thought is that we are believing or not believing in, correct??

Well, the belief in question is God. Whoa, this just got deep! Many individuals believe in a higher power, whether that be the Christian Father/Son/Holy Spirit, the Muslim Allah, the Jewish Yahweh, the Hindu deities, and so forth… or just a basic belief in a supreme consciousness. While others believe that there is no higher power at all and the universe, and us, are random and happen to exist by sheer chance alone. These different beliefs and the logic/history behind them are very interesting, and I will share my opinions and observations on the above in later writings. For now, the focus of this particular writing is to explain how I came to believe in what I believe in. Let’s begin in the paragraph below:

One God, Two God, Three God, Four! Oops, I Just Dropped a Few on the Floor…

Let’s get right to it: Growing up, my father was not a good person and he most certainly never won “dad of the year.” He physically and verbally abused my birth mother and my stepmother. While I was growing up, he verbally abused me, and made my stepmother and I live in solitude away from people and society for most of his life here in the U.S. He wouldn’t let my stepmother leave the house alone and I was not allowed to go to school as a child. Yes, that’s correct, I had no formal education growing up and I pretty much had to figure it all out by myself with some help from my stepmom and Bill Nye the Science Guy (best show ever).

My father grew up in Brazil and traveled the world before he met my mother, thus believing in many different gods and demigods from his travels. We would often have hour long “praying sessions”, where we stood in the bedroom to recite chants and supplications to different African, Hindu, and other gods. He considered himself to be New Age in his beliefs and I was brought up the same way. I could keep on going with all the things he did and what we went through, but I’m going to stop here and state that the fact that I’m not dead or an atheist is something quite remarkable. Furthermore, I have come to believe in not only a higher power, but a loving and surprisingly personal one. So, what do I believe?? Well, as author John Mark Comer puts it in his works, I’m an “apprentice” of Christ; a follower of Jesus Christ and His teachings.

Now, how I have this faith and still hold onto this faith, especially as someone who is passionate about the world of science and has a very open mind, is interesting. Let me tell you how it all started…

Wait, You’re Not Going to Start Preaching to Us, Are You?

Nope! That’s much later, jk 🙂

My belief in my faith all started when I was about ten but didn’t come full circle until eighteen. As a child, I identified as a New Age believer just like my father and I even remember having a conversation with someone who identified as Christian, telling them that Christianity wasn’t the answer. To this day, I wish I could remember what all I said and apologize to the poor fellow who had to listen to me. I was taught that there are two worlds: This world and a spirit world; that we could communicate with that world to help our own lives here on Earth. I was also taught by my father that it was ok to steal from businesses or the rich, that I did not need to respect others until they respected me first, and that it was perfectly okay to hurt my mothers because they “deserved it” and that I was expected to do the same when I was older… essentially teaching me that I didn’t need to care about others unless it served my needs as well. Great moral upbringing, right?

As a child, I believed this wholeheartedly, but everything changed when a voice/feeling/deep understanding began softly speaking to me, challenging what my father was saying. Call it what you want – a gut feeling, intuition, supernatural insight… (I called it a voice) it was there and every time my father would steal something or hurt my stepmother, I knew something wasn’t right. This voice was soft, full of peace and incredible compassion, and it seriously freaked me out as a child, but I knew I was safe in its peace.

Around the age of thirteen, the pendulum began to swing in a different direction, one that was opposite to my father, which caused great friction between us. The events that followed will be written separately, but at the age of eighteen, my father was deported and my stepmother and I were left to pick up the pieces and rebuild our lives.

Why A Christ Follower…

In the roughly eight years from hearing the voice, to becoming free of an abusive and oppressive father, those years were probably the hardest years of my life. As my heart was pulled in many directions, I knew to listen to the peaceful voice within my heart, but I had no idea how to navigate the relationship/situation with my father, while also having no idea who/what this voice was.

Believing that this voice was right took terrifying faith in deciphering how to apply it in an environment that was counter to its stance.

By the time I turned eighteen, faith in the voice prevailed and my father was no longer in the picture or a threat to my stepmother and I.

In the months following my father’s deportation, a friend recommended that I read the Book/Gospel of John (highly recommend). I did and when John was describing Jesus, I realized, hey, I know this guy! It was at that moment where I made the connection that Jesus is the voice I had been hearing all those years, and so far I have not been able to find any other alternative to the peace, compassion, and unwavering encouragement that voice gave me in what was the toughest season of my life.

Moving Forward Through the Maze of Possible Existential Crisis

I share the above story as an introduction of who I am/what I believe in and as a foundation to reflect on in my future writings. Even though I am a Christ Follower, I do not readily respect/tolerate traditional religion considering how mankind has done a terrific job of using religion as a means to control, extort, and dominate people. I say this from the viewpoint of historical and present context. Just look at world history and current world news, and you should easily see what I am referring to.

I believe there should be open discussion, open ideas, and an open mind in analyzing and questioning our state of existence as there is nothing wrong with questioning/seeking, The Why Behind The Sky, as long as the intent is to seek truth and not one’s own ego or self-motive. After all, if Christ is the truth, which I believe He is, seeking to find truth should point right to Him.