Jesus spoke to John, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

I must admit that I must have screwed up my faith quite a bit from time to time. And occasionally, my heart starts stirring this malaise from within — somehow, being Christian seemed to entail a series of testing and intensive moral struggles. It become exceptionally laborious especially when the spirit and heart falters. Of course, my Christian walk can never be placed on par with what Jesus have gone through with His walk to Calvary. Still, I’m only human.

Just two weekends ago, I dropped my expensive cardholder containing my student matriculation card and Giro-link enabled EzLink card. Besides being an expensive cardholder, I have a paper which I have to sit for two days after the incident (which requires the matriculation card), and the Giro-Link card will mean granting the user who found it unlimited access on Singapore’s public transport. I remember praying about it, hoping for an instantaneous find. It didn’t quite happen, at least not immediately.

I called for the EzLink card to be disabled and reported loss for the matriculation card.

The card was eventually returned. Besides the two cards that were present in the cardholder, it contained a business card belonging to a car rental company owner, Raymond. Raymond had my records because I was once his customer. The man who found my cardholder was some busy man named Richard working in Thomson Medical Centre. So, Raymond called me — telling me that Richard picked up my cardholder — I was elated.

I could have waited a little more, and have a little more faith about this. But my logical instincts got the better of me, and I’m feeling unhappy about it now.

What really moved me were the actions these two ordinary men have done beyond their call of duty. They actually went through the extra mile of locating me and attempting to return the cards to me. More so, when I was about to set off for Thomson Medical Centre, Wei De actually called and offered to get it back for me. Amazing. I actually felt cared for and loved.

I have never expect anything of such scale to happen on me. And to me, it was a miracle, the work of a God.

What I couldn’t reconcile myself with were the other areas of struggles, which I’m still experiencing.

My life turned for the better a decade ago, and much better when I got baptized last Good Friday; however, this Christian journey seemed to get more grueling as time passes. And I couldn’t tell why. I accept readily for the adversities in my life, and I try to count my blessings because I knew there were more people who suffered more than I have. And thinking about it, I know I had a better deal because I had a functional family and healthy life to begin with.

However, to struggle each day with our imbalanced moral scales was a mental feat which I’m coming close to giving up. It’s not exactly something I could share readily, not without risking being judged.

And topping the list of the entire What-If-God-Is-Not-Real chart was a blog entry I gleaned from a friend’s:

what if there is no such thing as god and all the times when we prayed and got an answer was from our own conscience, nothing to do with any heavenly beings or god? you might ask god what you have done to deserve something bad and the answer that came out was just a corruption of your own conscience, which conveniently became an answer from god.

I know the simplest solution is to avoid contradictory literature of such nature which potentially undermines my own beliefs and faith; however, I believe that such internal debates were very real. And because they have a potential to corrupt and to strike doubts in our faith, all the more there is an increasing need to find out what’s true and what’s not.

It will probably take a while before I can fully comprehend the entire bible, but for now, I choose to believe.