I grew religiously apathetic as a senior at my Christian high school. Christianity was a chore of three chapels a week and theology class everyday. I was able to say the right things to get by but I didn’t really believe them. God had no place in my life.
But after graduating and transitioning to a new stage of life, I felt something was missing. I was lost. This was emphasized when a friend of mine took his life. I could not understand what had happened. If you would have asked me how I was, I would have said “confused.”
As someone who finds peace in understanding, I wanted to get out of my confusion quickly. So I questioned my own life.
“What is my purpose? Is there any meaning? Is my life a lie? Why do I feel my hands? Am I conscious? Is there a god? What is the purpose of life without god? How can I ask myself questions about myself?”
This barrage of questions crammed my mind everyday for months. And, every answer led to more questions. I couldn’t understand something to be true unless I had proven it true and moreover. I would not stop asking questions. Why would I do this? I was frustrated that I didn’t know because I was always known as the person who knew. I was trying to know the answer to many unanswerable questions. Never in my life could I not understand something if I had enough time.
Emotionally this left me drained. I could not trust the concepts that formed my very existence because I was a stubborn skeptic. I grew depressed by the confusion brought upon my metaphysical skepticism. I was confused by asking questions to get out of confusion. And when I would find an answer, I would immediately invalidate it because “I don’t know.” My stubborn skepticism left me in between here and there, in nowhere.
Really, I could not accept that God was the answer at the trail’s end of many of these questions. I could not get over my skepticism. Radical skepticism positioned me as the highest object in my life. I became my own god (a depressed one) because I had the power to question all. I ran away from God and tried to outsmart Him. I despised that God was the answer to my questions and tried again and again to find different answers, but nothing changed. I found God by running away and trying to outsmart Him.
Now, how does this knowledge transfer to belief in my heart? I don’t know.