Fake Believe Faith

I can remember playing “make believe” and pretending to be someone I wasn’t, stepping out of my reality for a moment in time just to be something magical. That got me thinking today about how fast life moves and how sometimes we move right along with it, at a speed that sometimes causes us to see a fake reality. Like a kid slowing a swing down, I dug in my heels and took a long hard look at life and how I live it. I don’t profess to be perfect or to be the next nominee for the Christian of the Year award, far from it at best. I try to do my best, but often fail. But, what troubles me is the way that I live my faith and the way that I interact with others. I’ll call it fake believe, like make believe but not so much with the magical part. 

Fake believe is the essence of professing to be a Christian but not being fully willing to believe that God has a divine plan for me. My mind is cluttered with the cliche’s of the faith…just believe, have faith, etc. etc. But when I examined myself during my “out of body” experience, I found that although I am quick to say that I know that God has a plan, I have seeds of doubt planted deep in my heart. Seeds of doubt grow only plants of gnarly thorns that poke at my heart, telling me that I’ll never be good enough or I’ll never be perfect enough. How can that be? If I’ve accepted that Jesus died for me, and that through His sacrifice I am made anew, how can I fail to grasp that He has a plan for me? And best of all, that plan is not to cause me harm! Failing to claim the destiny that God has set forth is like someone pushing a stack of $100 bills toward you with no strings attached and you reply, “No thanks. I’ve got this.”

Fake believing has also let me live the comfortable Christian life and not slow down long enough to pay attention to others’ suffering, daring to be uncomfortable. In passing, I may say, “I’ll be praying for you.” It’s such a nice sentiment and I know we’re all guilty of saying it at some time or another when it was not followed up by prayer. But then it hit me, what if…just what if…all of God’s people followed up that statement with a true, heartfelt prayer? It wouldn’t take that long to stop and pray in earnest for someone. It hit me one day when a lady I barely knew was dying in a hospital bed. I thought to myself, “I’ll be praying for her,” but was then scolded. “No, you won’t. You hardly ever do,” I heard my conscious saying. Right then and there, I stopped and I prayed in earnest. I have no way of knowing, in human confirmation standards, that the prayer made any difference. But, I know in my heart that it made me feel real; one step away from fake believing. 

Fake believing also lets me avoid the uncomfortable subjects and not face what God wants me to hear. Ever hear that voice inside your head that says something that you know in your heart to be the truth yet fail to accept it? Yep, that’s God and He usually doesn’t shout. It’s usually a soft, still voice that gently guides you and challenges you to hear the stuff that you don’t want to hear. I’ve been feeling that little voice telling me that I haven’t always been the best friend to some people. In the past, fake believing allowed me to dismiss that and treat people in ways I would never want to be treated, all because I felt that they were in the wrong. Wow…my “fake believe” made me think that I was always in the right and others were always in the wrong, which is so inconsistent with what God’s word teaches us. 

So now, with my heart exposed, I continue to rip the bandages off what years of fake believing has covered up. I find that I must accept the past and claim the future that God has planned for my life. I can’t do that, and neither can you, until we push that fake stuff out of our lives and begin to feed seeds of faith. I’ll never claim to be perfect, I am human. But, I will commit to slowing down and living life more meaningful, with less fake believe.