I Just Believe…

Lee Ann Leach

“I don’t believe in the sorcerers or the preachers. I just believe in You. I don’t believe in the scholars or the wise men. I just believe in You.”

–“Untitled,” Collective Soul

He was a little, tiny, Indian doctor and he strutted into the room and quickly laid down his clipboard and introduced himself to me and my son. Then he looked at my son intently and caught his attention. “Tell me, Tristan, can you raise your right hand?” My son gave him an odd look and raised his right hand. The little neurologist replied, “Are you sure that’s your right hand?” Tristan nodded. “How do you know it’s your right hand?” the doctor asked him. “Because it is,” replied my 10 year old. The doctor smiled at him and then asked, “Who told you it was your right hand? Who taught this to you?” My son thought for a moment and then answered, “I guess my Mom.” “How do you know she was telling you the TRUTH?” was the doctor’s response. “Why would my Mom lie to me about which is my right hand? Besides, everyone knows which is their right hand!” Tristan popped back. Then, the little doctor threw us both a curve. In one carefully worded speech he has set my mind pondering and thinking ever since that day almost 4 years ago. “What if your Mom and everyone else has been lied to for so long that the false assumption is now considered the truth? What color is that chair, Tristan?” Tristan answered back that it was red. “How do you know that that is truly a red chair? Why is it not blue? What if red was really blue and blue was really red? What if thousands of years ago some man decided to play a trick on the rest of society to come along forever after him and to start saying that red was blue and blue was red? What if everything you know and understand is all a lie? What if the truth has been so obscured by time and society that we are all understanding nothing but lies? That the things that are not true are being perpetuated forever after as the actual truth?”

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Whoa. What if? Think about what we are taught and led to believe is the truth. Laid out in black and white, on paper, recorded in the annals of time and history. Are we taking man’s word, written down as history and fact as truth when in all reality, even things that seem blatantly factual and true are falsehoods? Things made into truth simply because it’s been repeated for so long that it becomes the truth. So, where do we as human beings, coming to understand this concept, go to find the truth? What are we supposed to believe is the truth about anything?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few years. I have always been what I consider a deeply spiritual person. I hate the term “religious,” because that word implies an institution or organization. I, even though considered one, don’t even like the term “Christian,” because of what people professing Christianity have done to the word. So I suppose I’m just going to leave it at “spiritual,” but sometimes people misunderstand this word to mean “involved in the occult” when in fact, I am a believer in Jesus Christ and all that it entails, including believing the He is indeed the Messiah, God in the Flesh, and that He was crucified, resurrected and will indeed, make a Second Coming and restore the world to it’s perfection and toss our old buddy, Beelzebub into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. I won’t bobble and teeter on this belief at all, no matter how “uncool” and/or “politically incorrect” it might be, so just get over it, OK? I won’t shove my beliefs down your throat and/or judge you on yours, so I expect, at least, the same respect. Now, contrary to what most “Christians’ represent and claim to be, I’m sure, at least, 80% of them would damn me to hell for what I am about to say on my own personal beliefs, because it’s way off base from what your typical Bible totin’ Christian believes.

I was raised Southern Baptist – nay, more than raised, I grew up in the church’s doorstep, literally. The house I where grew up in Lipscomb, Alabama sat right next door to the very church my family attended. Broadmoor Baptist Church. I could belt out, in their entirety, “The Old Rugged Cross,” “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,” and “How Great Thou Art,” at age two. When the church doors opened, I was there… and even sometimes when they were not. I understood and “accepted Christ” at age 11, but I was never baptized. An unholy fear of water kept me out of the baptismal font. I always studied and investigated my own beliefs and what I was being taught and questioned everything. In my teens, I started noticing hypocrisy all around me and was drawn away from the Baptist church simply from observing and becoming aware of the people’s actions around me.

At 18 years old, I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – the Mormons. Even some of what the Mormon Church taught left me feeling that some of it wasn’t exactly correct, despite weekly Sacrament meetings full of people proclaiming that this was the “true church of Jesus Christ restored in the latter days.” Now, my personal beliefs have been gleaned and sorted into something involving no “religion” at all, at least not organized. I chose to let my prayers and answers to those prayers create what I believe God and His Spirit tell me is the truth and to never trust any flesh and blood man’s views on what is true and what is false. Personal revelation, if you want a definition. And sometimes, my personal revelation flies in the face of everything that is considered truth by most.

I believe that we were created spiritually before we were ever created physically by our earthly parents. That, we existed in a spirit form before conception and that we knew one another before and actually made plans to come into each other’s lives before we were even born in the flesh. I believe we each have a “mission” to accomplish while on this earth and every person that comes into our lives and goes out of our lives has a reason for being a part, no matter how small, of our lives. We each have a lesson for one another. I don’t believe the Bible to be correct and perfect (gasp!), mainly because it has been translated over so many times that it is only reasonable that something, somewhere along the line got screwed up. I believe in eternal relationships. Our relationship with the Almighty is eternal, so why shouldn’t our other relationships be the same?

I believe that “God” is “God” no matter what faith a person follows – Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Wiccan, whatever, He’s it, there’s only one God…period. But, I do believe that “God,” Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all different beings. In other words, I don’t believe in the “trinity.” I believe that when the Bible speaks of these three being “one,” it means they are one in purpose, not one single entity.

I also believe that evolution and creationism go hand in hand. They are both correct. Someone had to start the whole process of evolution and I think it was “God.” The whole argument is ludicrous and one side of the debate is just as wrong as the other. There is no right or wrong in the issue.

Basically, my whole “belief system” lies in one simple conclusion. I believe what I have been affirmed in my own soul by the Spirit that answers my prayers. I don’t believe what is preached to me from a pulpit, I don’t believe what tarot cards tell me, I don’t believe in the philosophy teachings of the “great minds” of the world, present, past, or future. A lot of these mere men have some things right and a lot of things wrong. There is truth in everything, but there is more misconception than there is truth. I may falter and waver on a lot of things in my life and what I think is true at any given moment, but I do not falter in my faith that God will reveal His truths to me. I know above anything else that God will not deceive, betray or tell me lies. God is the one thing I CAN trust, and that’s about it. There is nothing else above what His Spirit lays on my soul and heart.

If there is one thing that really peeves me about a human being, it’s when a person refuses to be open and honest with everyone about what they believe. I don’t know if it’s their fear of being rejected, ridiculed or simply that they worry that they won’t be accepted. Whatever the reason, those people are the ones that are the real losers. If you believe something with your whole being, then you should never fear the repercussions from anyone or anything. There is nothing to fear if you know it’s the truth. Those that won’t openly tell the world what they have discovered is the truth are, simply put, cowards. I have no problem announcing what I believe when asked, and will tell anyone right up front how it is with me. But still, I will not force what I believe on anyone that doesn’t want to hear about it.

I also believe that what may be true for me may not be true for the next person, and I can accept their truths for them, but don’t expect me to follow along in the same beliefs if it’s not what the Spirit has revealed to me. There is no reason to hold judgment over anyone and their beliefs; the only way to get past all the arguments and debates over the whole subject is through acceptance. I accept you and what you believe for you. It just may not be right for me. God, in His ultimate wisdom, made each of us different and unique. His plan and message for each of us, in turn, is different and unique. Why can’t we all just accept that and get over the arguing and debating who is right and who is wrong? God is perfect and omnipotent, to question His reasons and ways is ludicrous and ignorant. He gives us what we need to know when we need to know it and not any sooner or later than is the perfect time. This is what I believe, and if you can’t get past that, then that is your problem and one that you will have to deal with on your own level. He makes each of us what He wants us to be and uses us in His own way to accomplish the things He knows needs to be accomplished. There’s no trying to resist His plans and the way He has set out to make things work. No matter how hard we “kick against the pricks” and try to make things go in the direction we believe it should go; it’s not going to happen any other way than what God has planned. For you, for me and for everyone, the whole key is acceptance of that fact and learning that we do not know better than God. Just let Him do His work and cooperate… anything else is a losing battle. ◼