I participated in a discussion on a social media site recently where one of the other people suggested that faith couldn't be trusted and unconditional love could get you in trouble. He reasoned that a lot of people of supposed faith do things incredibly wrong – like murdering in the name of God. He suggested that logic should reign supreme. If people would forget faith in favor of logic then they wouldn't do such stupid things. He also recommended that love should not have free reign because it leads to codependency or narcissistic behavior.
I found his way of thinking more frightening than the possibility that someone's unfounded faith might cause a terrorist attack. Shall we abandon faith, hope and charity for simple logic? Why does it have to be all or nothing? Can't we use all the faculties God gave us? Yes, God gave us our logical minds for a reason, but dare they be completely trusted when they too can be tainted by our life experiences? Our minds can fool us into thinking we're acting completely logically, when in reality we're basing everything on an underlying faulty premise lodged in our subconscious minds. Throughout my life, I continue to discover old "programming" running in my subconscious mind that drives my actions. When I get down to them and examine them, I realize that actions taken because of them were completely logical. The problem was they were NOT true!
- All men aren't bad with money.
- Debt is NOT an inescapable part of life.
- We shouldn't hold back our love and protect our hearts because people might die or leave us.
- I don't have to accomplish some lofty set of goals in order to feel my Heavenly Father's love and approval.
I consider myself a very logical person – been a computer programmer for 20 years, but even when founded on "truth" I still don't trust my logic completely. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and it's simply not logical that Christ would bother dying for me. It's not logical that He would love me just the way I am. None of it is logical to my reasoning. I'm just one person among billions of billions. Why not leave me off the list and save some suffering on His part? I'm so grateful that faith tells me He did indeed die for me. I'm grateful to have felt His unconditional love for me – in spite of all logic that He should feel that way. His grace still amazes me!
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