In Vain

“Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”
1 Co 15:2

“What if all these things turn out to be false?” “Will all the time and energy that I have invested in my religion be in vain?” I sometimes question myself.

“What would have been the alternative if I had chosen not to commit my life to Christ and to his cause?” I try to come up with an answer from a purely pragmatic perspective. “Would my life have been more satisfactory and fulfilling had I not followed the Lord?”

There is no possible way for me to figure out all the things that might have occurred had I chosen another course of life, but I can at least make a knowledgeable guess by looking at the lives of some of my peers whose world and life view and ambition for life was similar to mine before I knew Christ and how their lives have turned out. A few of them have become successes in their academic pursuits and, with reasonable effort and luck, I might have turned out to be just like them. They are professors in literature who are most likely similar to most college professors I have come in contact whose lives I had absolutely no desire to emulate. Would I trade my life and beliefs in for theirs? This is a silly question, isn’t it?

Don’t most of us consider our lives ideal? Perhaps not most, but some do. We have no right to place other people’s lives on a balance and determine their value as such. Some homeless people in the city of Los Angeles may be perfectly happy and content and who is to say their quality of life is inferior to that of other people.

If, for some reason, Christ turns out to be false and there is absolutely nothing beyond the portals of death, I am still victorious because I have lost nothing by leading a Christian lifestyle, since I believe being a Christian is the most joyful and fulfilling life, far better than a pagan lifestyle. I know this to be true since I have experienced both. The pleasure of sin pales greatly compared to the joy of the Lord.

Am I intellectually honest? How do you know that you, like millions of people in the world, are merely superstitious and believe in pipe dreams? This isn’t the case, for I have considered the alternative and it is utterly bizarre and discreditable. The Darwinian evolutionist insists that I am material and nothing more. However, I believe, albeit not entirely intellectually, but emotionally and spiritually, that I am far beyond material since I have the amazing ability to love and to write beautiful poetry. This earthen vessel may not be very impressive looking, but it surely can do a lot great things that my next of kin in the evolutionary process have never dreamt of doing, if they dream at all.

You may claim that I have wasted my life by being a fanatic about the Lord, but just let me be fanatically joyful and, contrary to what you may think, I am not envious of your life.