While faith is a central theme of how I live and make decisions, I realize it’s not for everyone. I’ve known many friends over the years who have decided faith is no longer something relevant to them. There are lots of reasons against a life of faith that make sense to me. especially intellectual ones. Mainly because I don’t consider myself as an intellectual.
I did not do well in apologetics class in theological school because all the arguments were designed to speak intellectually about faith. I don’t process faith that way. I’m much more intuitive. If you tell me that faith doesn’t make intellectual or scientific sense, my reply is the same, “You got me on that one.” I appreciate intellectual drive. It’s just not the only thing that motivates my thinking. I’m not wired that way. I possess more than intellect to pay attention to.
As a student in my 20’s, there was no seminary course on this, but I have dreams and visions. I have done so my entire adult life. Many of these have outlined some of my future life events and have been very accurate. Yet these didn’t fit into the box in which I was studying.
I am intuitive. Some describe it as a feeling in the gut. That’s not the way to do science. But it is the way I choose to do faith. Leaning into the bent of my heart has made faith so much more relevant to me now in mid-life.
I spent the first part of my life trying to fit my faith into an intellectual system that it wasn’t designed for. Now that I have given myself permission to explore intuition, an entire world has opened up to me. It doesn’t make sense to an intellectual, but it does make sense to an intuitive like me.
Even this decision was an act of faith.