don't stop believing

Faith. How do I still hang onto it?

Well, I suppose it's a mixture of things.

Most importantly, it's this background belief (that I rarely even question) that God is up to something I don't understand... at all. But if the history of redemption is God creating a world prone to a fall from perfection, letting it fall into sin and disrepair (analogous/related to the concept of entropy), rescuing it through the life and death of Jesus, and then letting the church simmer for 2000+ years kinda/sorta bringing God's Kingdom into the world little by little (but screwing up a ton) then... I don't understand that either. In sum, if I were God I would have done it all a bit differently. But I'm not a deity, and I can't not believe, so I just keep hanging on.

Second, I make myself do Christian things. I make myself talk to God, I make myself conform to some sort of Christianity morality, I make myself go to church and sing the songs that I may or may not actually believe on any given day. There's a saying: "If you drag the body long enough, the heart and mind will eventually follow." So I keep being a Christian, thinking eventually I'll believe it.

Third, I do believe it, sometimes. Every now and again, albeit rarely, the Holy Spirit captivates my heart in the way only He can. And He's done it before, so I know how it feels. And those moments reduce me to tears, because I know that, for all my lack of belief and indescribable pain and anger at God and everyone else, He hasn't given up on me. In the middle of my gayness and the sinfulness that invades all of our lives, God hasn't given up on me. And I can't get over the idea that God still knows the plans He has for me, and those plans are for my welfare and aren't evil, and include a future and hope. That doesn't change just because I'm gay.

Does that give me a lot of specifics for the day? No. But it helps me to hang on. Being a Christian in the gay world isn't much easier than being gay in the church. But I've always lived my life in that tension between two different worlds, and now is no different.