Have you sought the Truth?
We are all here for a certain amount of time, and then what happens after death? Can you answer that question? How firm are you in your belief? If there is one thing you should do during this mortal life, it is to be able answer that question with a resolve so firm that you would be willing to die rather than renounce it. Anything else done is this mortal life will rot away. Houses decay, cars rust, tools for hobbies rot, and images fade away. But that which is eternal, will remain forever. And if you believe nothing happens after death, just nonexistence, then what does it hurt to look into an afterlife? After all, none of this will matter, right?
People believe that if God is real, He would smack them in the face. Many hold that since they haven’t been given visions or miracles, either God does not or exist or it’s just in other people’s heads and not true. God created us out of love, with free will, in order for us to love Him freely. If God threw miracles and visions at us all the time to bring us to Him, or if He revoked our free will, we would not love God freely.
With that said, God did reveal Himself to us. God came down from heaven and became Man as Jesus Christ. The eleven Apostles who suffered brutal martyrdom rather than renounce Jesus Christ serve as a testimony that they witnessed things they were willing to die most painfully for. Many other martyrs have suffered in the name of Jesus Christ.
There is something to this, something they did that we need to do, and that is, to build our relationship with God. Through Jesus Christ, God has fully revealed Himself to us. Jesus gave us a model through His humanity and provided instruction on what to do in order to be a follower of His. We just have to do it. We have to take ourselves out of this world and focus on God by climbing the ladder to Him.
The Patriarch Jacob fell asleep and “dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac’” (Genesis 28:12-13).
There is a ladder for each one of us to climb to God, we just need to turn our attention away from the attractions of this world and focus on heavenly things by looking up the ladder and grabbing the rungs. When you first step on the ladder, those closest to you will walk by and make fun of you, renounce you even, all while you try to stay focused on God who is at the end of that ladder. With time, you will be so focused on climbing the ladder that you won’t even care to look down.
And before you know it, while busy climbing one rung at a time, sometimes with a misstep here and there, you will have climbed high enough to see that your life is not the same as it was before. You will be so busy enjoying the peace and love at the heights, that no one will understand. They will ask rhetorically, “How can climbing a ladder be so fun to you?”
They just won’t understand. You can’t force them to. You can just show them the beauty in your life since climbing the ladder. With your prayers, they just may inquire for your guidance so they can muster up the courage to climb their ladder.
You need to make sure you are climbing the correct ladder because it can be easy to go astray after climbing. There are many forces who will attack and try to knock you off the ladder. That is why it is important to dive into the Revelation of God held within the Bible and the Holy Catholic Church. Once you reach out to God to learn about Him, you will have the opportunity to welcome His grace into your life so you may cooperate with Him.
In my experience, the grace of God flows quickly once you turn to Him with an understanding that you do in fact need Him. Adam and Eve committed the first sin because they thought they didn’t need Him, and thus they fell from His grace; they were trying to “be like God” but without God (Genesis 3:5). But we can return to God’s grace by turning back toward Him. Once you start to do this, the battle will start. The enemy will realize you are no longer in his hands and will throw temptations at you to try to deter you from pursuing God.
When I started reading the Bible and converting out of atheism, the enemy made me feel unworthy of God. Notice that I did not say the enemy tried to make me deny the existence of God, but that I was unworthy of God. I resolved to try to pursue God anyway because I would rather try to amend my life instead of blatantly turning away from Him. The enemy did this one night when my wife and I got into an argument about parenting. We are blessed with a beautiful marriage where arguments are rare. On this particular night, it took but a quick moment for us to yell at each other in the most aggressive manner with wild accusations. While I was yelling, I had an out of body experience and I thought to myself, “this isn’t us,” not in the sense that this is unlike us but that it was in fact not us yelling at each other, rather it was the enemy taking us over to try to escalate the argument to the point of no return. I separated myself for a moment so I could calm down and then returned. I told her what I experienced and she experienced the same. While I was calming down, the enemy was making the accusation that I was unworthy to be a follower of God since I was acting so harshly, even saying “what good does it do for you to read the Bible when you still act like this?”
The enemy is real. The truth about God is out there. It is easy to try to write it all off as attempts to explain, but that simply remains a theory until one investigates and begins to learn. Once someone does pursue the truth and turn to God, their life will never be the same.
As Saint Augustine says, while speaking to God, “our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Our hearts are indeed restless until we rest them in God where we find peace and rest. It is not the same peace as other spiritual endeavors; it is a true peace. A peace where the boat is calm despite being in storms. Not a peace of ignorance or vibes being maintained, but a peace that can be undisturbed, so long as you rest your heart in God.
I encourage you to look for the truth. Feel free to research all religions, but please, I ask that you do not treat the name of Jesus Christ as a dirty word as I once did. If you seek the truth, you will find it. If you seek to affirm your own convictions and find what feels good and agreeable, there is something out there for you. But the truth is different from that. The truth is something you must acknowledge and submit to in acceptance of it. Truth does not conform to you. Will you seek the truth?
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