Do You Believe in God?

Do You Believe in God? By Madlyne Saba (Nov. ’01)

Do you believe in God? Throughout your lifetime, you are going to be faced with many different kinds of decisions and temptations. Most of these will be small and hard to see coming towards us. Allow me to elaborate on what I mean by that. For example, it’s a Sunday night, and I know I have a test Monday. I have no idea what the chapter is about and I know I must study in order to pass. My friends call me to go to the movies with them. I choose to go to the movies, instead of studying for the test. Therefore, I am faced with a small everyday temptation. Instances similar to this approach us every day. These types of temptations are extremely hard to see coming, and occur many times in a single day. Some of them can affect you for the rest of your life.

There are much bigger and more important temptations that are generally easier to see coming and easier to avoid. For example, let’s say you have a boyfriend of two years. You two are extremely close and you understand and express your love for each other in a nonsexual way. It’s a Friday night and you both go out with a group of friends to a party. Afterward you and he go back to his house for “time alone.” No one is there, so you both cuddle up on the couch. You both independently have thought of this whole sex idea, although neither of you has ever brought up the idea in conversation. This idea of premarital sex is a large temptation that may not hit every day, but we have to be prepared for it.

It seems to me that life is a series of decisions we make and temptations we are faced with. We are put in a position to deny something we believe in. For example, take that study-for-the-test-or-go-tothe- movies situation. Depending on what you decide, you might find yourself opposing your own work ethic belief. And in the after-the-party situation, because of your decision, you are faced with denying the sanctity of your body. But the plain truth is, you cannot blame anybody else but yourself for being in these situations. The decision was all yours, and yours alone.

However, there is a third type of situation. There are, unfortunately, times when people are forced into a situation that they cannot foresee in any way. This has nothing to do with a decision we make for ourselves, but a decision that was made by someone else. However, our response to the situation is what the remainder of this article will discuss. The situation I’m speaking of is this: if for no reason at all, out of the blue, someone walked up to you, put a gun to your head and asked if you believed in God, what would your reaction be? This situation is different and could lead to what I call the “Ultimate Temptation.” It is the denial of God. And just like in the past, it is very real today. This is a very difficult situation to think about, but one that I feel should be discussed.

A lot of people in the past have been faced with situations similar to this. A lot of them were beaten, tortured, and even killed because of their faith. This kind of thing still goes on every day in different parts of the world. For example, in 1960, a monkpriest named Nestor was born in the province of Crimea in southern Russia. All the monks in Russia were required to be registered with the state which was atheist. Nestor did not register, so if he was caught he would be put in jail or killed. He was eventually ordained as a monk-priest. He found a church in Zharky and decided to stay there and serve God.

There were many times that Nestor’s faith was tested. His church was robbed several times. Eventually the people stopped caring about robbing the church; they wanted Nestor’s life. He was held at gunpoint in front of his own house. He ran inside and locked the door. They shot at him, but all he could do was shoot towards them to try and scare them away. He would never shoot at them. This scenario went on for quite a while in his life. Monk-Priest Nestor was eventually found dead outside the window of his house on December 31, 1993. His throat was slit and he had multiple stab wounds. This all occurred only eight years ago.

I’m sure we have all heard about what happened April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Denver, Colorado. There was a school shooting by two boys who went to that school. It was a very tragic situation. But there is much more to it than that. Cassie Bernall was a student at Columbine and was in the library at the time of the shooting. One of the boys walked up to her at gunpoint and asked if she believed in God. Her response after a short pause was yes. Apparently they did ask her why, but didn’t give her a chance to answer. She was killed instantly.

The event at Columbine made me very curious, so I decided to ask a lot of people I know the same question that Cassie Bernall was asked by the shooters. The responses that I got were amazing. Some people said yes right away, and others said they wouldn’t be able to respond unless they were in the particular situation. I totally respect the responses I got, and understand where these people are coming from. Christa Shalhoub’s response was that she would be happy to die for Christ. She said “I live my life every day to climb up the ladder of salvation, and when the time comes for me to die, I hope I can reach heaven.” These are very powerful and extremely effective words. Jaclyn Ansara’s reaction to the question was, “The only way for me to answer that question is to actually be faced with the situation. I am a strong believer in God, and I would love to say that if someone held me up and asked that question, I would without a doubt say YES! But until I am faced with this (and hopefully I never am) I cannot give you an answer.” Both of these responses were very helpful in trying to understand different points of view. I hope that by the time you finish reading this article, you have some idea of what your feelings toward this subject really are.

If someone just walked up to me and asked me if I believed in God, I would say yes. Of course I believe in God. But would the circumstances change if that person was a complete stranger and had a gun to my head? Of course it would. I don’t think that I would be so quick to answer. I personally have thought a lot about this for the last couple of months. In the end, my answer would still be “yes.” Christ offered us the promise of eternal life, which means life forever after death. I could either die for Christ and live forever, or live and really die.

You can think about this question and decide right now what your answer would be. In fact, you may not know it, but you have been thinking about it your whole life. Cassie Bernall said yes, she believed in God. Whatever you have believed your entire life is what is going to come out of your mouth. You aren’t going to have time to think about your family or your friends. You can’t tell the gunman, hold on, and let me think about that. The response you give is going to be spontaneous. It’s going to be what is in your heart and what you truly believe.

This may not be a subject that we all would like to talk about. No one likes to think about death and leaving friends or and family. I started this article off thinking that I didn’t want to get my personal feelings involved. But shortly after beginning to write, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to finish it without having my personal opinion or feelings go into it. After doing all the research and reading what I had written, I’ve realized how important this subject is to think about. I hope that by the time you have finished reading this article, you too realize how important this issue is to think about. I hope that you will never have to be faced with the situation or question, but if you are, at least you will have thought about it.