What I Do vs. What I Believe, Pt. 2 July 11, 2011
In last week’s column I asserted that we all show exactly what we believe by how we live. It’s a mistake, in other words, to try to change what we do to match up with what we believe. What we do already matches what we believe. Our actions never contradict our real beliefs; they simply manifest them.
Suggest whatever example or hypothetical scenario you’d like. Let’s say a pro-life couple decides to get an abortion for financial reasons. Are they really and truly pro-life? Hardly. Their actions prove what they believe: that their financial wellbeing is more important than their baby’s life.
Or the guy who sings to God on Sunday, “You’re altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me” and then never cracks his Bible or prays for the rest of the week. Does he really believe God is completely lovely and worthy and wonderful? Not if he doesn’t even have the desire to seek God outside of a church building.
But here’s the real question: why do our actions so often show that we don’t really believe what we say we believe? What are the greatest hindrances to believing, and thus living, what we say we believe? There are probably lots of answers, but I’ve been especially convicted about three.
1. We live by feelings more than by faith. More often than we care to admit, we are “feelingful” instead of faithful. Some of these “feelings” are genuine emotions; others are just plain old desires. For example, if we don’t feel like reading our Bible, we’re easily tempted not to. After all, it’s much easier to live by what we feel rather than what we say we believe! To put it another way, we tend to believe our feelings more than we believe God. Do you see the source of the problem? It’s not that we need to live out our beliefs. We’re already doing exactly that. We believe our feelings more than we believe our “beliefs,” and so we live by our feelings instead of by faith in God. The problem lies in what we believe. (Answers 2 and 3 coming next week)