Is it really God you don’t believe in or His commands that you don’t like?

Our disbelief in God is almost always co-existent with a rebellion against him in some area of our life, either due to choosing to do what we want to do even when we know it is against God’s commands or refusal to yield to his authority owing to a hurt for which we feel was not deserved or that we do not feel we have got fair recompense.

When we find difficulty with God’s commands, or when His response to our situation is not as we hoped it would be, instead of submitting to his commands or accepting his responses, we usually want to do away with the commands and also act our own way instead. But since we cannot do that because God does not quite change his position depending on our circumstances, we often make the decision to throw the entire God outside of our lives.

Wrong as it might seem, this actually is an honest reaction that we do not often give enough credit to. It makes sense to seek independence away from someone who we do not wish to obey.

If we were to be honest, we would admit that many times, it is not God that we are against, but the restrictions that he puts upon our lives. And since we cannot both claim God and do the things that he expressly commands us not to do, we decide to move outside of his rules and do our own thing. It is not then that we do not believe in God, but that we do not want to do as he instructs us to do.

For example personally, the two times I railed most against God were when I badly wanted to stay in relationship with someone who not only was a professed non-Christian, but was also involved in what was basically witchcraft and I was trying to seek every loophole that could allow that relationship to continue, but could hardly find any.
The other time was after a period of unspeakable difficulty in my life overall, and it caused me to question everything that I thought I knew about God, Faith and Christianity.

In the former case, there obviously was nothing in the theology of my faith that could permit a relationship between a professed non-Christian and myself to happen and I did not like that. But since I wanted this relationship badly, the only thing that could allow me peace was to try to rid myself of the weight of my guilty conscience. I began to seek alternative ways to remain spiritual but also have my relationship. It could not work. Eventually I got the courage to let that go.

In the case of the difficult life circumstances, I was forced to learn to take more responsibility for myself and not outsource responsibility for myself with the blind hope that other people would take care of me. The things that I had been avoiding for the longest time in my life such as speaking up, putting myself first, and boldly rejecting unseemly treatment regardless of who it came from now became things that I absolutely needed to do and I was forced to learn to do them. My life inevitably became better for it.

Now during that entire time, I did sound smart being objective to the idea of God, Faith, and the Christian Community but beneath all that was really a rebellion towards what God wanted and continued to expect of and demand from me, unchangingly.

Fortunately or unfortunately, sooner or later, we discover that we cannot live apart from or outside of God. And many of us, even when we profess a disregard for God, do not exactly live without him. When it is convenient we speak of God every now and then, engage in some form of prayer; and wish God’s blessings on people that we care for. In particularly hard times or when we need a miracle, we also turn to Him. Outside of God, we are hardly our best selves. We are prone to patterns that we would rather not be in, hold ideas that keep God’s best away from us, and are trapped in cycles of brokenness that we more often than not are forced to continue perpetuating as we are essentially trapped and cannot get ourselves out.

Eventually, though, if we are honest, we soon learn that we need God’s help to restore us and help us break out of patterns that frustrate us. We also learn that the restrictions that God puts on us are- cliché as it may sound- meant to protect and not to limit us from the good things of life. Finally, we also discover that the world is not as forgiving and graceful as God is- yet our souls constantly need forgiveness, grace, love and acceptance- things that we can only get in their purest and truest form, from God alone.

When we re-learn that these are freely available in God, we may consider giving him a chance again.

Regards,
Anna Grace.