There are many reasons. One of the most important is that I know His sacrifice is beyond my comprehension. Parents would rather suffer themselves than see their children suffer. However, God sent His Son to die for us because He knew that without this divine intervention, we would not be able to return to live with Him since we are sinful human beings. It’s beyond my understanding how difficult (understatement!) this must have been for Heavenly Father. A sacrifice had to be made. Of course, Jesus had to agree to the plan of salvation as well. I adore Him too.
I wish that could I be more worthy of a sacrifice, but if I cannot be worthy, I can at least be grateful. And of that I assuredly am. I try to make my decisions based not on what God would do, because I’m not on the spiritual level necessary where I can even pretend to know what God would do in a lot of situations. So instead I ask myself in a situation what God would want me to do. That too can be hard to fathom sometimes, but I try.
I read somewhere recently that 1/5 of Americans describe themselves as not being religious. These people do not want my pity; they are comfortable probably with their choice. But if they will forgive me, I do indeed feel sorry for them. For people who do believe in God, it can help deal with the various awful things that happen in life. That is another reason why I am grateful for my belief in God. It is an anchor.
But maybe the most fundamental reason why I believe in God, and why it works so well on a practical level in my life, is that He is always there for me. His love is unconditional. I mess up. He loves me. I think bad thoughts. The love is still there. He might not always love my decisions; in fact, He definitely does not, but His love for me as a human being is unstoppable. There’s so little love in the world that it is nice to know that someone, even unseen, is an enormous champion of me. And not only me, but of everyone. He loves everyone else exactly the same as He loves me. He doesn’t play favourites. The person I don’t understand, He understands. The person I’m not smart enough to love, He loves. And that’s enormously comforting, to know that in Him there is no bias. Just perfect, unconditional, imcomprehensible love.
I am not a Deist. I do not believe that a benevolent Creator created us, and then abandoned us. I am a Christian. I believe in a Heavenly Father. I believe in His Son. I believe in the Atonement. I believe in the chance of a better eternal future. I believe that God is with us every moment of every day. People, including myself, often complain about how unfair life is. It can be very easy to feel that way, particularly when natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy occur and wreak such havoc on the population. But we do not complain about the greatest unfairness of all. That is the unfairness of a Son dying on the cross so that His brothers and sisters can live with our Father, even though we technically do not deserve it. We don’t complain about that unfairness; we revel in it, because it is our only chance for eternal happiness. And hopefully we remember this in the small moments of the day when our internet doesn’t load as quickly as we would like, or someone is mean to us, or we don’t get something we want, or we get something we don’t want. Because that’s when the great truth matters. If we do our best to be worthy of the sacrifice, we will enjoy the benefits of it. And nothing else in life comes close to the importance of that.
