leap

july 20, 2001

(This page will look better if you use a browser that supports web standards, although it can be accessed by most browsers. Upgrading to a standards-compliant browser will enhance your reading experience.)

Kill me softly. What do you think of this entry? The guestbook awaits.

Yes, this entry was supposed to be up last Wednesday. My apologies. And if you've noticed, Lizard's Asylum has moved! The Asylum is now being hosted here at DigitalRice. Ad-free, baby!

Situation

 Life is full of mystery. There are a million things we don't completely comprehend. And sometimes I wonder why we actually try to understand everything.

Isn't it interesting how we try to take apart the world, look at the gears and doohickeys and say "So that's how it works!" ? But when we find something that doesn't fit, something that's beyond our comprehension, something that isn't supposed to fit into our "scheme" of how things work— when we find something that we don't understand, we claim that it isn't real? We try to grasp at something that is beyond us— and we fall short.

Sometimes we have to stop trying to understand. Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith.

Chrisitianity

 I've suddenly found my faith. I've taken that leap, and I'm happy I did. I've lost it once, and now I've found it. Everything seems to fall into place. God indeed works in mysterious ways.

I was born a Christian, but I never fully understood the weight of it all. It never settled in my mind, because I wanted to understand my faith on my own terms. I wanted to find God in my own thinking. I tried to understand His existence by using my reason. But I never did— I fell short of understanding it all. I tried in vain to reason out my faith. But that never worked.

I tricked myself into believing I could do it— that I could reason out everything, that I could search for him through logic and rationality. I was too proud to admit that there are things beyond reason or the human mind. There are things that one must have faith in.

I went through the motions of being a Christian, but there was something missing: my faith. Everyday, I asked myself the same question: what do I believe in? Why?

And then it hit me.

A leap of faith

 Well, it didn't hit me, but I gradually realized that reason is made of weaker stuff than faith. I realized that there are things which are beyond me. I realized I can never rationalize faith. Reason can get you only as far as its limits. You have to take that leap of faith (as Kierkegaard would say).

I took a breath, looked at that chasm between the edge of reason and the island of belief, and jumped. I jumped, trusting that I would reach the other end. I jumped, not because of objective proof or what have you, but because I now have faith.

Found

 I've found it. I've rediscovered it. And I don't intend to lose it. I can rightly claim that my faith is something which I can't explain, because it doesn't need to be.

Thank God.

back to top

© the Lizard's asylum 2001.
All rights reserved. No part of this website can be duplicated in any form without the express permission of Jan Michael Ibanez. See the about page for more answers.