When is it hard for me to believe in God? Hard for me to believe in Jesus?
Hard for me to hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit?
When is it hard to believe there even is a Father, a Son, or Holy Spirit?
It was hard to believe when God seemed like a concept or a proposed idea in an attempt to make sense of life, when I had not met God, had not felt personally acquainted.
It is hard to believe when I see the immense number of people, men, women, and children, whose lives are destroyed by common events, wild storms, dreaded diseases,
or when they are ground under by the cruelties of abusers, oppressors, or dictators,
the wars they get dragged into. They are millions in just the last century.
It’s hard to believe when I see someone’s life slide into a slippery slope of wrong decisions that lead to a narrow captivity with less room to breathe, or to choose, when to change directions seems nearly impossible.
It’s hard to believe when I consider the massive size of the universe,
the countless stars and galaxies, the deep black emptiness of space,
vast distances so great that even if we could travel at the speed of light,
it is too far to reach other livable planets within a lifetime,
before those planets are burnt out by war or neglect if there were any “intelligent life” here.
I can’t understand why any God would create so much dead and empty space in order to grow a tiny planet like our own, full of life, in one odd corner of the universe.
It’s hard to believe when my own life or a dear friend’s may spin out of control, when one cannot eat or dress or bathe without some kindly person doing things for you,
things you know are so private and personal.
It’s hard to believe when the questions are so big that I can’t express them in words.
When it’s hard to believe, I only see one avenue of help.
That is to ponder the peculiar love and life Jesus demonstrated, and his courage to live and to die, trusting his father for resurrection,
even when he was saying, “My God, my God, why. . . ?”
When it’s hard to believe I have to admit my arrogance to think that I ought to be able to understand things so big and deep, so complex as reality is.
When I see myself as just one man in a marvelous, mysterious existence,
I contemplate,
I ponder Jesus, willing to die.
Then I wonder why,
and I believe in him,
I entrust myself to him.
When it’s hard,
I believe.
© 2021 Stanley Hagemeyer