"Lord I believe, help my unbelief."

In Fyodor Dostoevsky's masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov he wrote, "It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt." I have lived that statement out the last few years. It seems I place it on myself, because I don't want to blindly accept something, especially something as big and important as God. I desire strong faith, but often when I see faith lived out without doubt I see it as a weakness, a deficiency in accounting for all possible alternatives. Sometimes we want so badly to believe in something that we don't really believe in anything, we believe in our belief. If looking at belief from this angle, can it be an idol? I guess it can, but I'm not sure i would categorize it as such. The closer I grow towards God, the more fearful I am of what or who exactly God is- yet I still find an irresistible comfort in my belief. 

Is it really such a weakness to believe wholeheartedly in something...anything? Is it Satan allowing me to maintain my doubt? Is it God? Is it rationality? Is it because of my upbringing, or because of my resentment for authority? I can't answer any of these questions, but I am afraid of my doubts. I fear them because in my imagination, they hinder me from fulfilling my purpose, from fulfilling who God has created me to be. 

Despite my doubts, I rely heavily on my faith. I have experiences that seem to prove God, but have doubts that it is only my intense desire to have God be real, and be who I believe He is. But God isn't who I believe He is. God is God. "I Am" is what He calls Himself. Yet, my fear is that we have misunderstood the simple complexity of that statement. It's a beautiful story. Father creates a perfect world for His children. Father gives children the ability to mess everything up, because He wants their love to be genuine. The ability to choose. The children really screw it all up. They are punished by their own selfishness. God desires to allow free will to continue. He sends a payment for the selfishness of His children. This payment is said to fulfill who accepts it as their own payment. Love. Restoration. Sacrifice. These are the elements of a beautiful story. 

These are the elements of a beautiful life as well. If I live a life of love; of restoration; of sacrifice, beautiful things happen. It can be argued that that is because God works that way, so life must. But it can also be argued that life works that way, so we've made God work the same way. I can't ever really say. 

In an effort to be right, I retain my doubt and my faith. I attempt to have them measured out equally, to keep myself in check at all times. I think this is healthy, in a sense, but has become unhealthy, because it has caused me to fear. Fear is the complete opposite of love. My life has been written by fear. Fear of everything. Failure. Other people. Myself. God. 

Throughout it all, there has been something pulling me, nudging me closer to a purpose. I call this nudging God. Or the Holy Spirit. This Easter, I intend to celebrate Christ's sacrifice on the cross. It's a lot of craziness that I believe, but sometimes, truth is crazy. I cannot sit down and systematically prove every detail of the Bible's truth, or every piece of minutia proving God's existence, but I can say that whatever is propelling me towards God, despite my unbelief, is something bigger than myself. Something bigger than my ego, my self conscious desire for there to be something out there holding the cosmos together. God is real. I said it. I have said it to myself a million times, always followed by an ellipsis and a question mark. 

Am I ignorant? Yes, completely and totally ignorant. But so is everyone else on the planet. I won't be so arrogant to hold my belief in the absolute Truth of God over anyone else's head. My belief holds just as much weight as theirs. That isn't some sort of wishy washy statement saying there is no truth. There's only so much we can know. We each have our faith. Belief in God always seems to bare the need for proof, while atheism is allowed to merely accuse. My doubt is slightly dwindling, but it has a long way to go. Like the boy in Matthew cried, "Lord I believe, help my unbelief."