Believers versus Non-Believers at Christmas

I was listening to the news this morning regarding the billboards posted around the country on behalf of the non-believers/atheists/humanists etc. wanting a balance during a time when Christianity's beliefs seem forced on our nation. What I found most interesting was the way the believers are combating it...and that is to have a billboard war stating their beliefs.

Let's look at this a different way. Non believers in God just have not had a spiritual EXPERIENCE to make God real to them personally. There is nothing wrong with that...it is not their fault...they are stating where they are at. I don't think they are saying, "You should not believe as you do." They are talking more about their own personal experience and just wanting to be heard. Perhaps a more loving way...because that is the premise of what Christianity is about....love.....would be not only to pray for them to have a personal experience that made God real to them, but also for believers to LIVE MORE their beliefs, rather than TALK them.

If you are secure in your beliefs, you don't have to convince anyone else...your experience is your experience and no one can take that from you....in other words...you know what you know. If however, you are coming from a place of believing because someone else told you to believe this way, you come from a place of trying to force your beliefs on someone to help you feel more secure about your own beliefs. No one can take our personal spiritual experiences away from us...they are what they are. We don't need others to believe like us to feel more secure. If we need to do that, we are not all that secure in what we believe to be true. Also, beliefs change over time, as someone matures spiritually. There is a natural questioning time that comes, sometimes after you have accepted someone else's beliefs as your own. Perhaps there has been a parent that you have respected that believed a certain way and you adopted their beliefs as your own out of respect for that person. Then you may come to a time where you question what you "bought" as your own, which is only a time of integrating your beliefs from your head to your heart....a normal part of spiritual growth. Or you may say, "You know what, this doesn't work for me."

So let's stop fighting of any kind this season about our beliefs. That is not going to coincide with the "feeling" of the season. LIVE the "feeling" of the season...don't talk it. Let your beliefs come from a place, as Alcoholics Anonymous talks about, "a program of attraction, rather than promotion." Walk your beliefs, don't talk them.