If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I would tell you that I wasted hours of my workday trawling the Internet for religious certainty.
What prompted it was, I think, my wanting to test the strength of the Intelligent Design argument after reading some of Eric Metaxas’ attempt to cast all of existence as a miracle in Miracles, his popular volume which my mother sent me late last year when she first heard about my doubts. What kept me at it for what must have easily accumulated to half the workday was…I’m not sure what: An inner drive for certainty and stable identity? A proud wish to test my faith, which was renewed through the Christmas holiday at my mom’s house? A masochistic streak?
Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t love. My willful diversion today was unloving to my colleagues at DiamondBack, our customers, Carla, the kids, our church, and God. Even if atheists are right, exposing myself to their thinking in this way, via this medium, does nothing but enervate me. Even if I end up an atheist myself, I’m not going to end up an atheist via a failure to love and a squandering of time. Atheism-by-Internet-reading—or faith-by-Internet-reading, for that matter—is on the whole too fast, too shallow, too addictive, too hung up on miracles, too obsessive to be healthy for anyone.
I confessed my sin to Carla. (She had suspected as much based on my spiritlessness. I told her that if her emotional intuition fails her next time, she can always use tea: If I am sitting with a mug of chamomile, it’s a dead giveaway that I’m doubting. I drink it ward off the prospect of anxiety-induced insomnia.) She encouraged me stop seeking absolute certainty for the whole world, and simply make a decision for myself. She gently scolded me for emailing follow-up questions to Krista about her having spoken Mandarin at a meeting in Kelowna when she was 15. We prayed. I confessed that I am powerless by myself to resist the temptation of trawling the Internet like I did today and asked for God’s help. Carla and I experience sweet human connection.
Sweet human connection is one good thing that has come and will come out of this doubt.
Jesus, help me connect with You.