“God is good.” “God loves me.” “God has a plan for my life.”
I’ve repeated some variation of this so much this year. Sometimes in my head and sometimes out loud.
I thought I was trying to remind myself, but I was really trying to convince myself.
Nothing happening in my life indicated God was the loving, attentive Father He claimed to be.
At particularly low points, I felt abandoned. At lower points, I felt antagonized. And at my lowest, I felt the very foundation of my faith cracking. I wondered if the atheists were right, and I was praying to no one and staking my future in nothing.
Obviously, I’ve faced obstacles before. I’ve been assaulted, I lost friends that I thought would be in my life forever, I’ve been fired, I’ve been depressed, I’ve had my feelings hurt and my heart broken…but none of my life experiences prepared me for this.
There’s no short and sweet way to distill what I’m going through and I don’t think the details are particularly relevant as I doubt anyone reading this is going through the exact same thing. But I’m in a pain I’ve never experienced, I have been for months, and there’s no end in sight. And that’s unfortunately something that a lot of people will feel at one point or another.
When I thought I reached rock bottom, it’s like the ground opened up beneath me just to show me I could fall further.
I tried to focus on the good in my life because it’s so easy to take for granted when you’re consumed by the bad.
I tell myself that things could always be worse. I still have a roof over my head, even though I got laid off I got severance, I’m in decent health, I have friends and family that care about me. And I’m not fat.
But the positive outlook never lasts. It doesn’t matter how many inspirational Christian reels Instagram serves me, how often I pray, or how much Christian music I listen to. I can’t shake this feeling of despair.
I’m trying to trust God. But it’s usually most important to trust Him when it’s hardest to do. And it’s hard to trust a God that tells you He loves you but feels indifferent at best and abusive at worst.
I can only speak for myself, but when it’s hardest for me to trust God, reading the Bible isn’t particularly effective at getting me back on track.
I started reading the book of Job, yearning for answers. Going through those scriptures, I felt some relief. In the first chapter, when they’re describing his servants coming to him one after the other to inform him of tragedy after tragedy befalling him, I felt comfort. And as I continued reading, and watched his heated discussions with his friends unfold, as He cried out to God begging for an explanation, confused and desperate for justice but unsure it would ever come, I felt it too. I know what Job endured was a million times worse than the challenges I faced, but I couldn’t remember the last time I related to a biblical figure so intensely.
But I never finished reading Job. I don’t know exactly how to explain it. I guess it just got too overwhelming and depressing. I know I should pick it back up, but I haven’t yet and I’m not sure when I will.
When it’s hardest for me to trust God, I go from doubting His goodness and promises to doubting His existence altogether, and wondering if I’m just part of a delusional cult doing their best to make sense of suffering. And when I find myself in that mental space, I start thinking about atheism; not as an idea, but a lived experience.
I start thinking about what an absence of God actually looks like, practically applied.
I think about the cringe-inducing Reddit tier belief that we’re all “sacks of meat floating on a space rock” and that life means nothing. I think about how miserable these people end up, with zero self control, incapable of truly complex thought or intelligent discussion, staking their entire identities in sexuality and mental illness.
I think about people like Andrew Tate, so focused on their pursuit of worldly riches that they were willing to hurt innocent people so they could brag about what cars they drive.
And I think about the celebrities that came to Hollywood with wide eyes, full hearts and a dream, got a taste of the good life, and decided nothing was more important than keeping it. I think about the rituals and sacrifices in that industry, and how easily people can accept and adapt to evil when all they care about is fame and fortune.
When we don’t think of morality as a strict set of rules given by an ultimate and perfect authority, and something we can create for ourselves, we become worse people and make the world a worse place, no matter our intentions at the outset.
When we aren’t actively worshiping God, more often than not, we replace Him with something – more often than not, ourselves. Everything is about what we want, how we feel, pursuing short-lived and fleeting pleasures. We end up slaves to our selfish, fickle, stupid whims. And when we do that, whether we’re fat lazy communists, or self obsessed socialites, we ruin ourselves.
And that’s exactly what Satan wants. It’s what he did in Eden, and it’s what he’s doing now.
Sometimes it’s easier to believe in the devil than it is to believe in God, because it’s easier to see him working than it is to see God working. But if the devil exists, God has to.
When my faith is at its weakest and I’m questioning everything I thought I knew, I look at the people around me. I look at the libtards, the tradtards, the degenerates, the pious, the homeless, the boat owners, and everyone in between. And no matter where I look, something remains constant: the devil wants you to live a life without real meaning and without real hope, because both are found in Christ alone. And that’s why you have to hold onto Him with everything you have, even when it’s hard to do.
what do you think?