Why Do You Believe What You Believe?

Recently I've been really confused. A lot of questions have gone through my mind about Christianity and religion. You see, I want to know what's right. I need to make sure what I believe is the truth. What if what I've been believing my whole life is a lie?
It's hard being a Christian sometimes. It's difficult to give up your own sinful inclinations in order to become more Christ-like. So what if what the path I'm going down is the wrong way? What if all that has been for nothing? I still don't really know any clear answers, but let me take you through my reasonings why I believe what I believe.

1. God is real

First off, I know without a doubt that God is a real. I feel Him every day in whatever I am doing, and I know that I wouldn't be at the place I am at (emotionally, physically, relationally) without Him. Eternity has been set upon my heart, and I see the manifestations of that everyday in the wonder of the world. Even if He isn't real, and all I feel is simply neurotransmissions and chemical synapses, at the very least applying God to my worldview makes me a better person. (Check out Ecclesiastes for more on that)

2. Worshipping Go

Next is where it gets a little hazy. You see there are a few different religions that are all "monotheistic", and they all stem from Abraham. To list the major ones: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. They mostly read the same Old Testament, but they differ when it comes to Jesus Christ and the New Testament. I won't pretend to know all about Judaism and Islam, but I do know that all 3 religions claim to worship the same God.

3. Jesus Christ

Now we've come to the tipping point. Even if they all believe in the same God, there are very different beliefs when it comes to Jesus.
The trinity (God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit) is at the center of Christianity. If you don't believe God exists as three, then you don't believe in Christianity. There may be people that say otherwise, but the Bible is pretty clear on that point.
So, the religions separate when it comes to Jesus and other prophets from God. C.S. Lewis describes it so well in his classic explanation of Jesus. And I can't help but think the same way.

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." - C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I cannot come to any other conclusion than that Jesus was who he said he was - the Son of God. There are so many lives that have been transformed by Jesus. I can't help but believe that he is who says he is.

4. Unbelief

Finally, after thinking all these things through, and coming to conclusions, there are still doubts at the back of my mind. Still there are what-if's. So how can I go on from this? Well, I always come back to one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It comes in the story of Jesus healing a man's son who was possessed by demons. Jesus asked the man if he had faith enough for his son's healing, and the man replied, "I believe, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)
The man believes, he knows that there is something there, but in the end he is only human and he needs help from the Lord God to be able to fully trust in the Lord God.
Faith is so beautiful in this aspect. We are to trust in what we know, but at the end of the day, we don't actually know. That last step is really scary, because it's a blind leap into the unknown. Maybe I'll be right and Jesus will catch me, or maybe I'll be wrong and plummet to my death. But that's what faith is, and that's why choose to believe why I believe.

Shalom To You

     If you've been alive for so long, are observant, or perform any basic google search, you will probably be aware of the word "Shalom". It's mostly used in Jewish culture, and is used in greeting or farewell. Once or twice someone has said it to me, but I never really thought much of the word.
     Recently, however I came across the word in Soul Keeping, by John Ortberg, and it gave me some interesting insights.
     First, the word itself means peace, wholeness, or happiness. But there's a bit more to it than that.
     As humans, God created us in His image, and we have different parts to us. Not like different appendages or organs, but our self's are separated in that each of us has a heart, will, mind, and soul.

"He answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'". - Luke 10:27

We can think of each of these 4 aspects as a ring in a circle. The very center of the circle is our soul, with 3 rings outside of it. Right outside of the soul is the ring of the will. After that is the heart, and the outermost circle is the mind. The soul is the center, and is affected by the actions created by the reasonings and provocations of the 3 outer rings.

Heart:
Our heart represents our desires, our feelings, our emotions.
In the Old Testament times (before science as we know it today and autopsies and stuff) they believed that our mind was really in our heart. That the heart is where our thoughts and beliefs came from. And the word heart in the Old Testament can be translated as "the kernel of the nut".

Will:
Our will can also be thought of us our strength. It's what makes us do the things we don't want to do. As humans we often tend to think our will is much stronger than it actually is. Ever try NOT to eat that brownie or ice cream by sheer will-power? It's pretty hard.

Mind: 
Our mind is the place where our rational thought processes take place, the center of our logical thinking. The mind is most easily over-ridden by the heart and will. We know in our minds the amount of calories in that brownie and long-term effects of too many sweets, but our heart tells us how good it tastes. Our will caves to our heart much too easily.

Soul:
Our souls are our identity, they make up the very core of who we are. The signify what is eternal, what will last even after this word fades away. The Bible has a lot to say about souls and most of what it says signifies that our souls are things worth saving, and it is our souls that God loves. Not that He doesn't love the other parts of us, but in the end our souls are WHO WE ARE. They are the sum of the choices we make.

"What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?" - Matthew 16:26

"Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name." - Psalm 103:1

In our world there's a lot of stuff that revolves around ourselves. Our culture screams to satisfy yourself. It tells us to go chase our own dreams. gratiate and appease our desires. None of these things are really wrong, nor are they harming anyone else, but they are harming our souls. We have focused so much on our selves, that we forget about our souls. A healthy soul is able to have healthy relationships. A healthy soul is at peace, and is able to be quiet and still. I don't know about you, but in our world I see a lot of broken relationships and a lot of noise.

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     When all of these aspects are in alignment, we feel good, at peace, healthy, and whole. When everything is connected and we make the right choices for the right reasons, we can feel the most connected to God. Those moments of cohesiveness can also be thought of as "Shalom."
     In the midst of our sin-filled, rebellious lives as humans, these moments of Shalom are few and far between. Paul talks in the Bible about knowing the right thing to do, and wanting to do it, but in the end his flesh is weak and he does what he does not want to do (Romans 7:15-19). This happens to me all the time. I know what is right and true and honorable, and in my soul I want to do those things, but it usually doesn't work out the way my soul wants. Ultimately through the power of Jesus we can overcome this and have everything aligned so that our souls are in a moment of Shalom. I think of these moments as little glimpses of heaven. Because in the Bible heaven is described as God dwelling with man, free of sin and everything else that hinders us. So heaven is one constant moment of Shalom: being continuously united with Jesus the Son and God the Father.
     So when someone wishes another person "Shalom" they are wishing that they not only have peace, but are seeking God's face and seeking oneness with Him. A beautiful sentiment, that I pass to you, reader!