Belief

At the beginning of each day, week, or month, it might be appropriate to take a survey of just how strongly we believe in God and his love for us, especially in our "midnight" situations, when he seems so absent. Paul challenges us to do this: "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless of course you fail the test?" (II Cor. 13:5). Try this test with a somewhat harsh question: In these dark periods of life is my response more like that of an atheist than an Christian? The answer to that question can perhaps be crystallized by pondering this little item written by a professed atheist, titled, "If I Believed":

If I firmly believed, as millions say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this life influence destiny in another ife, then religion would mean to me everything. I would cast away earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as folly, and earrthly thooughts and feelings as vanity. God would be my first waking thought and my last image before falling asleep. I would labor in his cause alone. I would hardly stop thinking of my future eternity. I would regard the saving of one soul worth a life of suffering earthly consequences would never prevent me from acting or speaking out to accomplish this. The driefs of ife would occupy hardly a moment of my thoughts. I would go forth to the world and preach this message in season and out of season, and my scripture text would be: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" All of this would overwhelmingly preoccupy me - that is if I believed!

This atheist is simply saying that real faith would perspectivize one's life in terms of eternity; even grief, he says, "would occupy hardly a moment of my thoughts." Paul "with the spirit of faith" wrote of how he dealt that way with the agonizing "midnights" of his own life.

  We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (II Cor 4:!6-18).

This excerpt is from the book Coping with Life's Darkest Moments, by John H. Hampsch,C.M.F., originally published by Queenship Publishing Company. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.