I realised yesterday when I was talking about how Christianity is the better story that I never really talk about why I love Jesus. There was this one time that I wrote about how Christianity gives me hope.(http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2012/11/i-shall-hope.html) Hope is definitely a huge reason why I love Jesus. However, other than that, I mostly only write about why I dislike church, the questions I have, and the new ways of thinking about it all that I experiment with. This is not because I don't love Jesus. I spend so much time grappling with my confusions surrounding my faith BECAUSE I am so emotionally invested in it, if I didn't love something about it I would have given up on it all a long time ago. I decided to talk today about what I love about my beliefs. I should note, though, that since this is coming from me it is not a theologically correct statement of what Christians believe and why, its just the awkward ranting of one messed up believer who wants to remember all the reasons that she loves what she believes.
One of the things that I have come to absolutely love about my faith is the complexity of it. I used to hate that. I wanted something super simple and easy to understand, but that was way back in the day before I came to university. I have since learned that reality is super complicated. Sometimes I wonder if Christianity was just constructed by humans so we would have answers to the tough questions. If it was, I applaud the humans who invented it because it is complicated and I love that because I feel we need complicated answers to respond to complicated questions and realities. I mean, Christianity can be simplified, and there are aspects to it that are beautiful in their simplicity, but I love that it is also something you can keep contemplating and (hopefully) constantly be coming to a better understanding of it on into forever.
The complexity is something I love about The Bible as well as the faith in general. I also love the literary diversity of The Bible. There are poems, letters, and stories. There is love, war, and adventure. It really is a great book. It is very literary with tons of foreshadowing and symbolism and passages that truly come alive if you read them closely. I love how all of these different stories, styles, books, and chapters come together to tell one great story. There was a God who made a people who He loved dearly. They left Him, and brought evil to all He had so lovingly created and they needed to be punished, but He never stopped loving them and in one great climactic ending the great God came down as a mere human and took their punishment upon Himself leaving them with a helper to aid them as they tried to figure out how to stumble along in His footsteps and tell others about this great mysterious one after He had left and while they await His return. From a purely emotional and/ or literary view point is that not a fantastic story?
I love that Christianity helps things to make sense. Evil is here because of sin, but there is justice in punishment for those who follow the path of evil. That is pretty much every old medieval story. To make sense of the world we have good and evil and to keep up hope we have evil punished. What makes Christianity even more beautiful is that it goes beyond that by saying that we can also have evil RENEWED! That is probably my favourite thing about Christianity. I know that I have a bad side, most people I know do, after all, none of us are perfect. I love the idea that we can be both forgiven, and renewed. It is the most beautiful thing to me and that is why I think Christianity is the better story.
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