Unbelief

Despite my best efforts, I cannot recall what "unbelief" feels like. I can't remember my life before Jesus, the time before I knew hope.

This semester, I had a student in the class I taught that believes in nothing beyond the happiness of any given moment. Nothing. No guidance. No example of true love. No hope for what happens next. Nothing. He spent much of the semester adamantly stating his beliefs in nothing, anchoring them in the naivety of religion, the foolishness of allowing something else to determine the path of life. And it was in reading this student's work that I found myself asking questions that his belief in nothing could not explain.

Where did love come from? Granted, many of our human emotions cannot be given an origin, but I cannot imagine understanding love without God's love. We (humans) screwed up God's beautiful place with dark, ugly sin. He could have walked away. He could have left us to our failed selves, to self destruct. But instead He chose to send Jesus, His Son, His Love and rescue us. Without that, how could we know love?

Where is hope found? Family? Friends? Although there is great refuge in these relationships, they bear with them the burden of human nature. They are not perfect. They are not eternal. Stuff? Certainly little explaining is required to know that material possessions cannot sustain and frequently disappoint. The reliability of my own heart or mind? Ha. I don't have near enough faith to place my hope in the stability and strength of myself. What happens when real hope is needed - in moments of desperation? Times where certainty is not just shaky but completely gone? Is there no hope in life at all for the unbelieving? And if there is no hope, how does one force themselves out of bed in the morning knowing that desperation may be the only result of getting up?

These questions and so many more... Never has unbelief so undeniably solidified my belief. And if this makes me a fool or naive, then I'll live life as a fool.