How do people do it? How do people consciously live their lives without God? Without Jesus? How do they continue on that way? It boggles my mind. And honestly, it terrifies me to even think about what it would be like to live without Him?

When I think about my life in the faith, two areas stand out. On one hand, I see my blessings. I feel the air enter through my nose and flow down to my lungs and rise back up and out. A breath. A blessing. As I lay still in my bed, I hear a quiet thump deep inside. It’s rhythmic and calm, Thump. Thump. Thump. Never ceasing. My heart continues to beat moment by moment, day after day, with no urging of my own. Another blessing. The cushion under my face and warmth of blankets on my body comfort me as I lay. I think little of them, yet they do much for me. Blessing. When I saunter into the kitchen and open the fridge, an array of foods will greet me. I can select any one of them to fill my stomach (or in some cases to cure my boredom). They are there, always available to me, ready and waiting. Another blessing. A ding and a buzz call my attention to a small device in my hand. When I open it up, it opens me up to a world or information and knowledge and entertainment, right there at the tips of my fingers. I rarely think of it as a blessing, yet it continues to be such. I take advantage of something others do not. Blessing. Simply remembering all the people that grace my life, all the people who bring me joy and love and excitement. The other creatures of God’s workmanship whose paths He allowed to intertwine with my own, blessing. I could go on forever and still never finish listing my blessings, all the things God gave me, in spite of me.

The second area of my life that turns me to faith is my weakness. In nearly every way I am weak. I look at myself in the mirror, at the human staring back at me and I see her weakness. Physically, she is just bones and organs, protected my a thin layer of skin. Many things can hurt her, easily. In fact, she could trip and fall and injure this body with the very floor on which she stands. Weak. Then I look inside, at the mind that dominates my being. This is a mind that is constantly in turmoil, floating back and forth in the anxiousness of thoughts. It believes things it ought not believe, even when its owner instructs it not to. It doubts when it clearly knows what is truth, in spite of the owner’s will. It replays memories both good and bad, likely at inopportune moments. It fears and makes irrational decisions. It overthinks and loses focus. It knows too much of things that don’t matter and too little of things that do. It thinks it knows all things despite constantly needing to learn more. It’s weak. And there my soul is, trapped in the expanse of this body and this mind, in a land of weakness.

So there is my life, my entirety in a nutshell, a combination of my weakness and God’s blessings. All of this is not a lack of confidence with myself, but an acknowledgment of reality. I am weak and in need of blessings. Without God, there is no blessings to keep me going and no protection for my weakness. Without God, I am nothing. He is my Creator and my Savior and my Guidance. Without those things, what am I but a sad chunk of dust living just to die.

Yet, people live this way all the time, doubting their weakness and ignoring God’s blessings. They say they can do everything on their own, that they don’t need Him. But thump thump, their heart still beats on God’s rhythm. They say they are not weak, but can prosper on their own. But it is by God’s hand that their fragile bodies arrive safely to their destinations and that their minds still think coherent thoughts and that their lives of prosperity are even theirs to claim. How shameless it would be to assume God is not involved in every way.

And if we looked at it on the flip side, if God were to remove his hand, if He were to take a metaphoric step back from his creation, what would our world look like? (We would probably never actually see it because sight in itself is a blessing from God.) We would be and have nothing. Everything that we are and everything that we have came from Him. So how can we pretend He isn’t the start and end of all things. I once read “None of us have seen such a blessingless world. Even the vilest precincts of humanity know the grace of God. People who want nothing of God still enjoy his benefits” (3:16 The Numbers of Hope by Max Lucado). So tell me, how do people do it? How do they live without God?

K.J. 8/29/2021