“Belief makes things true; makes things real; makes me feel, feel alright” (I’m embarassed to say that this is a quote of a Gavin DeGraw song… but hey, even lame-o pop artists have their moments of relative insight).
Belief is curious because of its potential fluidity. It can be more than an intellectual assent which requires that all elements of being conspire to unite around a certain idea… an idea that transcends understanding and actually affects my heart. Belief is strong enough to ruin or reign over people’s lives. That is frightening.
I have a lot of unconscious beliefs, I’m sure, about things which are familiar to me (but not understood). Something, however, that I have unearthed from the depths, so to speak, and a belief that has shaped me immutably, is the belief in the anger of God.
This isn’t a belief that helps me rest well at night or that I am inclined by affectionate feeling to embrace so thoroughly… yet embrace it, I must. This belief alone has preserved me from philosophical nihilism; from psychological insanity; from religious resignation; from giving up. To me, a true belief that God is and will be an angry (and by consequence, just and righteous) Being alone explains reality.
No matter what I’d prefer to believe, people are capable of atrocities; the world is full of unspeakable horrors and horrifying injustices; there is no rest for the weary, there is no solace for the suffering, there is no settlement that will satisfy the thirst of those who have been violated on the deepest of human levels… except this:
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19b)
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)
Make no mistake.
His anger is stirred by what we see as evil.
There are not “bad things that happen to good people” – but there is innocence and sin and there will be mercy and wrath.
I believe that.
