For the last two years, my husband and I
have been watching our way through The
X-Files– all nine seasons (and three movies, so far) of it. That’s over two
hundred episodes, for anyone counting. We’re almost finished the seventh
season. I think I like the show, although some episodes have me wondering why!
I’m not a big fan of horror or suspense, and some episodes definitely go across
that line. Still, I find it fascinating.
For those who have no idea what the TV show
is about, it follows the lives of two FBI agents as they
solve ‘x-files’, aka ‘unsolved cases’. Usually unsolved because of something paranormal
happening, or aliens. One believes in the paranormal, the other is a
sceptic. It makes for an interesting relationship!
Coming into it, I expected the ‘little
green men’ and UFOs. Monsters and weird myths coming to life? Yep. Didn’t
surprise me. What did surprise me were the amount of episodes based around
religion. Catholicism, cults, American Indian, witchcraft, angels and demons,
Buddhist temples. They’ve all been there.
I thought it so strange at first. It grated
against me – the mixture of truth and fiction. Seeing it presented in such a
way. Real faith reduced to mere x-files. The monsters and aliens I could
handle, but trying to rationalise and 'solve' people’s faith? It was weird. You can’t
rationalise God! Even demons, for better or worse, work beyond human
explanation.
But then it hit me. I was coming at that
conclusion from someone who believed in God. Take God out of the equation and
faith truly is an x-file. Healings beyond medical intervention, supernatural
occurrences, people having insight into other’s lives, the right message coming
at the right time, lions and snakes not attacking when they should. It was so
obvious in my mind that those things were God working, yet take God out, and
they make as much sense as someone being raised from the dead. Oh wait, God did
that too…
My faith in God makes so much sense to me
that I’d never thought how strange it would look to someone who doesn’t
believe. I believe in the impossible, purely because I know God can do it. It
makes no sense. Take God out of my life and my faith looks not only delusional
but often completely irresponsible. No wonder non-Christians think Christians
crazy!
I was thinking about this the other day as
I was hanging washing outside on the line. Anyone watching would have thought I
was crazy. The clothesline still had drops of water clinging to every one of
its ropes from rain the night before, and the clouds above were so dark they
were practically black. Totally crazy. Yet I did it anyway, even knowing my
sheets would be near impossible to dry inside if they got rained on.
Why? Because I’d checked the
radar. And that radar said there was no rain coming.
Was it easy to trust the radar? No. Believe
me, those clouds were dark! Even I
wondered if I’d lost my senses to trust it! Some little screen on my computer
telling me there was no rain when it looked and felt like it was going to start
pouring down rain any second? Um, yeah. But I trusted it anyway, because it’s
smarter than I am and that radar and the people running it know far more than I
do about the weather.
It stayed dark all day. I almost gave in to
black clouds and took the sheets off the line before they were dry dozens of
times. But in the end, I left them there.
It never rained. My sheets dried. The radar
was right.
In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t
have really mattered if it did rain and my sheets got wet. Sure, they might
have been soggy for a while, probably even started to stink and had to be
re-washed if I couldn’t get them dry quick enough, but they would have dried
eventually.
But there have been times in my life when
choosing faith over sight has been much more of a risk. Like entrusting my kids
to God when they’re sick or away from me. Like believing God will provide what I
need when I have no idea how, and it’s the eleventh hour, and fifty-ninth
minute. Like knowing God can do the impossible, even when it’s, uh, impossible.
Faith, unfortunately, doesn’t come with a
‘radar’ to check when the clouds get dark around us. Instead, I find myself
going back over what God has already done. How many times he’s done the
impossible already. And I believe anyway. Despite the circumstances. Despite
how stupid, foolish, delusional or irresponsible I might look, even to myself.
The entire Bible could be considered an
x-file. I kind of hope my life could be considered one too – not because I’ve
been abducted by aliens, swum with the Loch Ness Monster or frozen time with my
camera, but because its filled to the brim with faith and story after story of
God doing the impossible.
Maybe it’d even make a believer of a
sceptic.
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