Believing in God is the easy way out.

I don't know how many times I said that in my life. So many. When I was battered and bruised emotionally and sometimes physically, I'd resent Christians for having a supportive, loving God with a plan to lean on to get them through everything. It was easier to believe in God because all of your questions are answered and there's no uncertainty.

But then why didn't I believe?

It was hard for me to believe. I'm not sure I've ever worked on anything so hard in all of my life.

When you study something, not only do you learn the material, but you also learn a method of studying for that particular realm of information. In CEGEP ("collège d'études générales et professionels"-- school between high school and university here), I did natural sciences and my best friend did social sciences. She was a year or two ahead of me and in my second year, she switched over to science and had the hardest time at it. She'd been trained to learn social science, which is a study of the big picture, and switching to science meant learning to grasp the tiny details instead. She had to relearn how to learn.

I've been scientific my whole life. If life was a university, I'd have gotten a major in science and a minor in fiddling with mechanical things. Religion is an entirely different realm of learning. It's a big picture thing, a tiny details thing, a literary thing and a metaphysical thing... among many, many other things. To learn religion successfully requires a strong emotional component to the learning process, and when you're repressing anger towards religion, that emotional "ability" is completely shut down. It becomes next to impossible to let religion in, to learn it without prejudice and resentment. It basically becomes impossible to fall in love with God.

And really, if it becomes impossible to fall in love with God, believing in God suddenly seems like the hardest thing to do. Without looking at those around you, just focusing on your own beliefs, values, and experiences, if you don't believe already, would it be easy for you to believe in God? And if you do, would it be easy for you to let go of your beliefs?

Neither is easy.

I'm still in between. I know what it's like to feel as though religion is easy, but I've also learned that in a lot of ways, being agnostic was way easier than believing. Being agnostic gives you far more control over your beliefs and your life, and it also is far less ridiculous than believing in God.

As an agnostic, I didn't know what would happen if I died, where my soul would go, if anywhere, and I was ok with that. I have never been afraid of death, and the few Christians I knew found that bizarre since my afterlife was void of any certainty. I always found it way more scary to face the uncertainty of all the potential living years ahead of me than to face death and the possibility of it all being completely over. I was just ok with not knowing the answers to the huge life questions.

On the other hand, as a Christian, I don't have any control over all of that. It may not seem like a control thing, but it is. If there is a God and a heaven and a hell, then those are the only options. It's kind of like being a chef versus being served. When you're the chef, you have the opportunity to feed and eat any possible food in the world. You decide what the food will be. When you're served, you eat whatever you're given. Sure, you can turn down the sweet potato, but you're still only limited to whatever else is on the table. And for a picky person or a person plagued with food intolerances or IBS, that can become quite a stressful situation. It's a control thing. You control the menu or you don't.

If I choose to be a Christian, I'm choosing to sit at the table with God and Jesus and eat what they choose to feed me. And while the perspective mentioned above in the food analogy can be stressful and restrictive, and the perspective of religion the same, it really isn't. I'm restricted to what God and Jesus provide, but most of the time, the restrictions are freeing rather than oppressive.

I say, "most of the time" because I do remember the freedom from responsibility I had as an agnostic. Sure, I was as nice a person as I could be. I tried to be supportive of those around me, tried to help people who needed help, tried my best to be a good person and to possibly leave a legacy that was positive in the world. But I wasn't accountable for it. I did it because I was empathetic and it was the right thing to do by whatever standards I'd set for myself. Being a Christian has different standards and goals. Still, they are not set in stone- there is no set doctrine to follow to be a good person, even if religion says otherwise. But there's an accountability partner there that was not there when I was an agnostic. There is a God who loves me.

You know how it is, right? You meet somebody amazing and fall in love with them, and nothing you do for them seems like work and nothing seems like it's enough. You'd go to the ends of the world to get them whatever they needed simply because you love them with all your soul and your being.

Now imagine that this person not only is beautiful, kind, loving and lights up your soul, but they also gave you life, breathed air into your spirit and provided you with everything you needed to survive. What kind of love would you return?

That's where the accountability comes in. It's not a punishment kind of accountability but a sacrificial love. God gave me life, gave me the strength to make it to this point in my life and gave me everything I needed- even if I spent most of my life till now rejecting Him. How am I going to acknowledge the significance of that today?

If every person (and I believe every creature as well) is a child of God, a brother or sister in Christ, then how will I acknowledge God in them today? Every person we treat badly throughout our lives is a child of God. As God has provided for me, He has provided for everybody else too. He loves every one of them equally and particularly. They each have value, and technically, equal value.

How easy is it to acknowledge that all of us have equal value?

I'm as judgmental as it gets. I know it's not easy to see other people as my equals. They're either better than me or worse than me, but very few people are my equals. But in rating them, judging them, I'm failing to see them as God's loves and as important to God's plan as I am or as anybody else is. And by slipping myself in there too somewhere near the middle, I'm basically telling God He didn't make me as perfect as others. I'm telling Him that He failed in some aspects of my being.

We all have different skill sets and abilities. There's no doubt about that. But what if our package of abilities and skills is exactly what God needs for His plan?

What if me being terrible at physics is part of what makes me perfect? Being terrible at physics led me into a different direction in school. The first program I had applied to in university was mechanical engineering. Had I been great at physics, I wouldn't have hesitated. But I knew I would not succeed. I knew physics was my Achilles heel, and going into a program based on it when the foundation I was starting from was so shaky was setting myself up for a massive failure, so my life path changed. In God's plan, maybe my lack of physics comprehension curves my puzzle piece in such a way that it fits perfectly. Maybe.

Or maybe I took the easy way out and I'm totally on the wrong path... :D

Only God knows...

Speaking of which, I was listening to a sermon from Mars Hill Church where Pastor Mark Driscoll talked about anxiety being a sin and that instead of treating it as a psychological thing, maybe we should treat it with repentance. In spite of growing up highly anxious, I saw his point. Anxiety attacks are provoked by the uncertainty and by our predictions of the future. It's not having any faith in God, really. We want to be in control of our future, to know what will happen and to be completely prepared for it. We analyze all possible scenarios and try to predict our reactions and action plans... As he said, we try to be God. We try to be omniscient and sovereign.

In a way, knowing that doesn't help because I still am terrified of what scariness might be in the future sometimes, but on the other hand, it kind of points out how useless it is to control stuff you have no concept or grasp of. And to form plans and set goals to avoid anxiety just overrides the natural sway of your life. Obviously, some plans are ok, but to set plans in such a way that your entire future is written in stone leaves no room for the Holy Spirit to move you. It leaves no room for passionate spontaneity. It leaves no room for accidental living.

Accidental living is the best.

I was telling my cousins last night about the time I got totally lost in Banff (which has, like, two streets), and I ended up taking a wrong turn into the woods. I kept walking (I'm smart that way), and ended up coming out of the woods to the edge of a massive cliff. There I stood, with a deep, dense forested valley in front of me and on the other side of the valley was Mount Rundle, my favorite mountain so far. I was face to face with it. It was truly amazing and I only ended up there because I was completely lost and yet somehow couldn't stop putting one foot in front of the other.

Of course, back then I had no perception of God, so it was just nature and I having a moment together while God watched, waiting patiently for me to be ready to acknowledge that there might be more, that maybe nature and I were part of a much larger team.

I remember it so clearly. I remember the way the air felt. The way the sky looked. The way the silence seemed to echo.

It was easy.

It was just me and nature. I was taking advantage of the wonders of the world, appreciating every moment, soaking it all in until my heart was full.

But I never said thank you.

It took me twenty-eight years to say thank you.

It was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done.