Hebrews 10:35 So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! 36 Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. 37 “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. 38 And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.” 39 But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved. – New Living Translation
What is backsliding?
It starts with something “negligible”, maybe something you can self consciously dismiss. It can be a tiny-bit-little thing that even if you are to explain it, you are forgiven for being too overzealous. Backsliding is relapsing back into something bad or negative after you had attested to leaving or forsaking it. In other terms, it’s a sheep going back to a pig’s vomit or a dog to its own. You realise that I said sheep going back to the vomit of a pig, because its not the nature of sheep eating vomit, neither vomiting, because His sheep are led to the right pastures.
However, growing up, I thought, like how the word sounds, backsliding would be an easily recognisable event full of screeching brakes and brake-marks in the trail. Unfortunately, I was very wrong, just as wrong as I am in many of my views of things. Backsliding might just be remaining stuck at a certain spiritual point whilst others are progressing. You probably won’t see it, because you are still surrounded by familiar operating environments, yet those scaling the heights will register your spiritual absence in their voyage. Backsliding is putting a full stop where there is supposed to be a comma. The effect, you stop completely when you were supposed to take a breath. You faint. You are not dead, you just blacked out and something registers in your system that you are not well.
Grey Areas
There is a reason why religion is not naturally sensible. Religion does not operate with grey areas. All major religions and their metaphors are in black and white, good or bad, Saint or ‘haint, yes or no. No religion operates in a “maybe, maybe not”, “it depends”, or “double-mindedness”. You see why I said it’s not supposed to be sensible.
Religion is absolute in its nature. It draws lines. It is intolerant of views questioning its proponents. It doesn’t accept dissent or maybe a concern. There’s no room for rationalization or deduction. That is why it won’t allow quests for understanding or conversation beyond what it defines as fundamental to its existence.
Believing as opposed to understanding
Trying to understand religion is troublesome. It is like walking through an plain rigged with mortars, a simple misstep you are doomed. That is the call to most religion, believing. Believe you ought to, because if you fail to do so, you will find yourself entangled. You might remain with the form of religion, but your mind would have shifted into something else.
Do not torture yourself because you are human. When you have a question about religion, take time to find answers. There is no benefit in saying you believe only, when you are calculative and pragmatic. I am of the opinion that in religion, pragmatism and believing are opposites, so is questioning and believing. Faith is a simple gift which no one can take away from you and you know it when you have it. The moment you start being uncomfortable with what you believe, I am afraid, you have come to the grey areas of religion. Quickly add more color to become black or white.
It doesn’t depends. It is.
PS: This post is a compilation of random thoughts. It has stayed in the drafts for long, so just thought of publishing it. 🙂
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