Losing My Religion?

Last updated on: April 26, 2012 at 7:40 pm by Amy Julia Becker

Losing My Religion? 2012-04-26T19:40:30-04:00 Amy Julia Becker

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I’m not really losing my religion. Just seemed like a catchy title. In fact, I’m in far greater danger of losing my faith than my religion.

When I use the word “religion,” I mean the theology behind Christianity as well as the external cultural practices associated with it. Theologically, I’m more or less the same as I’ve always been. I can recite the Apostle’s Creed without problem. I affirm the tenets of “orthodox” Christianity: that God is a Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit… that Jesus came to earth as God in the flesh to demonstrate God’s love through his life, death, and resurrection… that we can live with God now and eternally only because of God’s forgiveness of our sin through Jesus’ death on the cross… that the Holy Spirit lives within Jesus’ followers and continues to do God’s work on the earth… that one day Jesus will return and the whole world will be made new… I also appear religious in practice: we say a blessing before meals. We pray with our children before bed. We go to church on Sundays. We give money away.

But despite my religiosity, sometimes I worry that I am losing my faith. What with three children and bills to pay and laundry to fold and blogposts to write, the internal practices of Christianity often fall by the wayside. Prayer becomes a distant memory. Reading the Bible is something I used to do, an indulgence from a former life. And every day it’s harder than the one before to change my habits.

But this morning I woke up and had thirty minutes to myself and for some reason I decided to forgo the shower and read and pray and journal instead. And I remembered that though my faith wavers, God’s faithfulness does not. Though I forget to pray, God does not forget my needs. Though I fail to listen, God never fails to speak. Though I might lose my faith, God refuses to lose his hold on me.

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