I came across 12 Bloggerz! hosted by Rory. Rory you asked 12 great questions but one really jumped out at me. So, I’ll answer only that one because it aligned so strongly to something that is integral to who I am—my faith and being a Christian.

---

This is the question: How would you feel if everything you didn’t believe in today turned out to be true – which of your new disbeliefs now truths would affect you the most profoundly?

But also answer this question from the opposite spectrum as in –

How would you feel if everything you believed in today turned out to be false – would this affect you and if so which falsehood that you hold now true would affect you the most profoundly?

---

I’m a Christian. I’ve questioned things in the Bible. I’ve stripped down my faith to the bare ‘bone’ and built it up again just on the basis of who God has been to me. Not on theology and doctrine, but on a living faith. A faith in a God who grants me goodness and mercy every day of my life. Even in the hardest and saddest of times, I’ve experienced His goodness and love and walked in His mercy and grace. Now I KNOW that I know.

Turning now to answering Rory’s question: if it turns out that there is no God and no rapture and no heaven, living my life by biblical Christian principles in a world of “alternative facts” and intense hopelessness and despair would still be worth it. And I’d choose to live this way again and again because it affords me a joy and peace to live life in all its dimensions—the good, the bad, and the in-between.

I like how Pascal lays it out in his Pensées—as a wager: If I believe that God exists and I live by His principles, there is only a finite loss (like the “pleasures” of the world I choose to abstain from), but I will gain infinite blessings such as life after death. However, if I believe that God does not exist and He actually does, then my loss is infinite in that there is a life after death that I would have forfeited for finite gains.

Shabbat Shalom. May you find contentment in your faith.

---

You may also like: the tranquility of Sabbath peace; the blessings of Sabbath worship; the refreshing of Sabbath rest; those Selah moments of pause like mini-Sabbaths that can be taken throughout the week; the joy of Sabbath reflection; the harmony between humanity and nature that is affirmed in the Sabbath grace; and the science behind the Sabbath.

This was also written to contribute to Shelly’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday, the word is hope.

Thank you for reading!

First time to the site? Start here👈 and for more follow the blog here👈

In creative solidarity, Dee