Just because

Last Sunday I finally managed to wake up to get to church on time. The service starts at 9:15 because "the time is not determined by us college people". I would go to other churches where all scheduling is actually accommodates nocturnal college kids (they actually have services starting at noon) but I kind of like this place. Its called Chinese for Christ Church and its English language services are led by a white pastor who has a better command of mandarin than I do (give my knowledge of mandarin, that's not all that hard to do, but this guy was a missionary in Taiwan for a couple of years).

The church itself is really tiny - there were probably only ~100 people in the congregation -but its really homely and all. Which makes is weird, since my home church looks like a huge 4 storey office block with state-of-the-art equipment.

~...~...~

About a year ago, I told Caroline that if my faith were to continue in its trajectory, I would probably be an atheist by the time I finished college. I don't know if I confuse others, but I do know that I confuse myself. I may not have he quintessential christian pedigree, but I have after all, among other things - grown up in church, grown in cell groups, grown up in the church building by virtue of my mother working there, played the violin for Sunday school, served in the AV department, grown up in youth groups, led my school's Christian Fellowship. gone to numerous church/youth camps and gone up to Dewan Sri Pinang to act/sing/dance in the name of Christianity.

And yet my faith is always under attack.

Not by the situations I find myself in nor by the friends I surround myself with, but by the reasoning of my mind. I cannot reason with myself to believe in all that I want to, all that I have heard delivered in sermons - words from the pulpit and scripture from the Bible. Perhaps it is fundamentally flawed to determine, by reason, the existence of a God who by definition is omniscient and omnipotent. If one fails to comprehend the actions of a vastly superior God, is the failure in one's intellectual deficiency or in one's "wrong" belief?

But that doesn't sway me.

I want to know. I want to understand. I want faith.

I once went up to a visiting preacher at my church and asked to be relieved of my skepticism. The preacher chuckled, and then prayed for me. I want unwavering faith, not a quivering belief born from Pascal's wager or from a need for "fire insurance". I want to know how the we can reconcile the existence of an omnipotent God in a universe with equally omnipotent physical laws. I want to know what happened to all those gentiles who lived before the coming of Jesus. I want to know why an omnipotent God's power can be limited by our sinfulness, why he cannot cross the barrier of sin. I want to know why a God, for whom love is foremost, would place the responsibility of spreading the Gospel in the hands of fallible man if he cared for his lost sheep so dearly.

I am disgustingly arrogant.

Its amazing that I find myself questioning Nietzsche, nutcase that he may be, less than I do the Bible.

And yet you will find me in the church, singing and dancing with what could be either the touch of Holy Spirit or indoctrinated delusion. And I will continue to pour out my heart in prayer and the Bible. I will remember my youth spent in church and the hours spent in service. I will remember the many times I have stood up to defend my faith, while knowing that my arguments were not impermeable.

Because I want to believe.