The Twelve Steps (II)
(Faith)
“Before a higher power can begin to operate, you must first believe that it can.”
-verywellmind
This should have been easy, if I hadn’t lost my faith along the way. Transforming from a church worker, into an addicted weed smoker: who would have ever imagined? — not even me. This makes confidence in any ideas a scary thing to display, because you never know, in a few years or less, you might be a totally different person, who might even resent your past version. One minute you may think you’re grounded, the next minute, you’re on the ground; fallen, weak and far away from your best self.
Honestly, recovery is the best thing to happen to me, if only I keep going like this; even getting stronger on the journey. For the sake of recovery, I’ve had to sit with myself, long enough to finally hear the questions that had always been resounding from far within my soul.
A question as basic as, “why did I believe in God?” kept popping up, and sinking back, somewhere far down my subconsciousness. Today, I gave it the much-needed attention it required. Faith, if it’s going to be embraced, is sure to be a part of our lives, every step of the way. Therefore half-assing faith could be a waste of time, and a bother to our own minds. There comes the time we need to decide, if this is really us or not. Indecision about faith, is how vulnerable people get duped by conmen, in times of frustration; because they never really knew the God they claimed to believe in. Anyway, Today is the day I gave lots of attention to the question, “why did I believe in God?”
First of all, I never had that moment of believe. I’m one of those who grew up, somehow knowing that God was part of our lives. God was part of our lives, just like my parents were real to me. There was church, family morning devotions, school worship sessions, preachers all over the place, “by God’s grace” and other similar phrases flying freely out of everyone’s lips. Therefore there was no reason to doubt the reality of God.
The first time my believe in God was challenged, I felt like the innocent kid, who had just found out the truth about Santa Claus — betrayed and awakened to my societies collective ability to silently enable the continuation of false ideologies and doctrines. Well, I was also aware of the fact that many people, despite having lived several years, still had no doubts about God; some had even lived and died with their faiths intact. This made the divide between believers and unbelievers even deeper in my view; It seemed obvious that what the bible says about the chosen ones, is probably true — that there are people who are simply going to believe, and others who wouldn’t. [Reference: Revelation 7:3–8]
From that point forward, my view of society was split in two — believers and unbelievers. Even while actively in church, I disagreed with the principle of not associating with “worldly” people. This principle was apparently deduced from the scripture, 2nd Corinthians 6:14,
“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”
When I lost my faith in God, this particular scripture was one I fought against; affirming to myself that, ‘I do belong to this world’, and that I am both light and darkness, as is the case with every honest human.
This topic of faith is heavy to write about, because for every negative interpretation of scripture, there can be the positive interpretation as well. 2nd Corinthians 6:14 for instance could be interpreted to mean, that a believer should not be in agreement with the arguments that rise against our faith in God. That may be a little far-fetched, but it is a more positive outlook on a scripture that was once interpreted to inspire division among humans, based on nothing but ideas.
Faith in itself is far-fetched; Believing the unseen, and organizing our lives based on such ideas is simply a lot to process. History has it that it was in the 5th century that church came to a basic agreement on Biblical canon. Now, despite the negative interpretations, and even negative stories of the bible (murder, sexism etc.), It is powerful and impressive to have continued to thrive over centuries. Not just the bible has thrived over centuries, but other religious texts. These have thrived to the extent that even in 2021, faith and religion does not look dead yet. Even more impressive is the fact that, the more modern the world gets, the more versatile faith gets — moving away from indoctrinations and a responsibility, to a conscious choice that many are making for themselves.
It’s easy for a person who has never had faith growing up, to suddenly find it, and cling to it for dear life. As Karl Marx said:
“religion is the opium of the masses.”
It is true. With God in a true believer’s heart, it’s quite difficult to self-harm. You will have an image of your God staring at you with concerning eyes, or you will begin to hear your God asking you why, you are destroying their temple.
However for people like me, who lost faith and still look back, because they know that when they did believe, God came with some benefits they need now, it can be a difficult and humbling experience. If there is one thing I’m learning on my journey through loss of faith, to repentance, it is that, it is my fellow humans that made God look so unpleasant that I, begin to seek out more and more arguments, and doubts, until I finally got to the point of total disbelieve — but when I search my heart, God has always been good.
In actual fact God is not a bad idea; God can be as good as you want, and as bad as you believe. God can continue to be that higher power you believed in, who you can talk to in times of struggle. You can actually decide to believe in God, but not be part of any organized religion. Instead of loosing faith in God, you can choose to disbelieve doctrines about God that do not sit well with you, and reinterpret scripture through your right senses, without apology or explanation.
Unpopular opinion: you can decide to live a life of faith, without bothering about what scripture says, if that doesn’t sit well with you either. No man really has the right to tell you how your walk of faith should be. Every human human alive is younger than faith, and we all rely on history for information concerning it. Thus, there is nothing wrong with doing whatever you must do to get your higher power back in action for you, instead of going through lives struggles all by yourself.
I believe that, if we do not try to force our opinions about God down anyone’s throat, we owe no one but God, explanations for how we execute our faith. It may feel like a crime to deviate from the laid down conventions, but it is actually not.
Final thoughts:
I believed in God, because God was in my reality, helping me have a sense of accountability to my own self. As an addict, I see now that God will help me walk this recovery journey, less stressfully, if I open the door.
This is part II, in a series about “The Twelve Steps”. You may check out Part I in this blog. Also if you enjoyed my writing, you may consider supporting my career, with a purchase of my debut book, in the link down below. Stay blessed.
https://www.amazon.com/HER-DIARY-SOBRIETY-Journey-Recovering-ebook/dp/B08VNSS5FP
