Chapter 6: My First Epiphany

a "lightbulb moment" I had about the state of the world

 

Yes, it is my problem

 

Suicide

Genocide

War

Hunger

Famine

Persecution

Slavery

Manipulation

AIDS

Injustice

Discrimination

Addiction

Crime

 

It’s real. There are children who will go to bed hungry tonight. Countless human beings walk this planet carrying a deadly disease-and they don’t even know it. Somewhere, a teenager is planning to end her life because she fears the world will never accept her.

It’s real.

 

For years, I ignored these things, for many reasons. Maybe I thought it was God’s will that people suffer. Maybe I felt powerless to change anything. I don’t know.

 

My response to these dilemmas was to say a prayer for the needy, the broken and the sick and ultimately assume that nothing would really change. “We’ll never solve world hunger”, I thought, “so why even try?”

 

Now I have my answer: Because if we don’t, no one will. My exodus from faith has made me aware that if there is no god, or if god doesn’t care about us, then it’s up to us to take care of each other. The best thing I’ve done in my exodus, is stop praying for my friends and start helping them. When I notice a friend having a hard time, instead of whispering a prayer and leaving it up to God, I ask myself what I can do to help them. Then, on my good days, I do it.

 

I used prayer as a cop-out for too long. It was a form of learned helplessness. My belief used to be: “Pray about everything. Give your decisions to God. God will do the work, you just be still and trust him.” Was that trust or plain laziness? Either way, there’s no sense in asking an invisible spirit to do something when I can just do it myself. I’m ashamed at how long it took me to figure this out.

 

It’s like the time I was moving into an apartment and I called a friend to help me set up my computer. He shocked me by saying, “It’s not that hard-you can do it yourself.” He wasn’t planning to come over. I was so mad at him! There he was, right across the street and unwilling to lend a helping hand to a friend in need. Begrudgingly, I began my first attempt at hooking up a computer. I hate to admit this, but my friend was right. It wasn’t as hard as I thought.

 

 I managed to set it up myself with only one problem in the end result. Somehow, with the way I plugged stuff in, the mouse could only be plugged in on the left-and I’m right handed. So was my roommate. I decided instead of re-wiring the whole thing, I would just learn to use the mouse on the left. And that’s how we used it all summer. In the beginning, I thought my friend was a jerk for not doing the job for me, but when it was over, I was glad he made me do it myself. So, I guess that whole”If you give a man a fish…” saying is true.  If I rely on someone else for everything, I’ll never have the self-confidence that comes with succeeding.

 

I just want to bang my head up against the wall every time I hear a Christian suggest that people should be depending on God, not medicine, for their healing. “You put more trust in Tylenol than in Almighty God!” they say. Look, even if I do someday believe in a god again, I’m not going to petition heaven in tongues over a headache when I can take two painkillers and be done with it. That’s one item on a long list of things I don’t miss about being Charismatic.

 

I’m training myself to start taking responsibility and doing something that is going to make a difference. I don’t know how to solve world hunger, the AIDS epidemic, domestic violence or anything on that list. But I know that there are a lot of people trying, doing their best to make this world a better place, and I think I would like to join them. I’m done leaving the fate of the world up to a deity who may or may not even exist. I’m finished passing the buck. I’m ready to start really caring.  I want to go further, be more, and try harder than ever before.

 

Who’s with me?