I prefer God over CASH
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. (Psalm 24:1)
There is never a day when I don’t value the presence of God in my life, but times of crisis magnify His greatness all the more. With all the uncertainty in the world right now, I can’t imagine facing a global pandemic without Him. It must be hard to be an atheist in a time of global calamity.
According to a 2019 Pew Research poll, 4% of Americans identify as atheists with 5% more claiming agnosticism as their religion. (1) Dictionary.com defines an atheist as “a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.” An agnostic is someone “who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.” In short, atheists deny that God exists while agnostics maintain that the existence of a supreme being is unknowable.
I once worked with an agnostic who claimed his self-knowledge was more significant than belief in a supreme being. He grew up Catholic and hated the principles of confession and penance, thereby causing him to disavow anything involving those religious tenets. I tried reasoning with his logic, reminding him that God desires a relationship with us, not our religious rites, but he refused to alter his mindset. I cautioned him that if he were wrong, he’d spend all of eternity separate from God.
“If I end up in hell, so be it,” he said. “Stop trying to convert me.”
Sobering words, but I respected his wishes. My friend couldn’t stop me from talking about my faith or praying for him, but I never pressed him to alter his beliefs. That decision was between him and God.
Yesterday, I volunteered to assist in the packing of food boxes at America’s Second Harvest. For two hours, I heaved cases of walnuts, split-peas, soups, tuna fish, peanut butter, canned pears, chickpeas, applesauce, green beans, and 60-pound bags of rice to create boxes for mobile kitchen giveaways in the Savannah area. Altogether, we packed 315 boxes with 7,875 pounds of food. According to the volunteer coordinator, that was enough to provide 6,562 meals to hungry families in our area.
While it felt good to do something to help during the COVID-19 pandemic, my experience was tainted by the t-shirt worn by one of my fellow volunteers. My chosen apparel advertised my employer‘s name, but the man helping me haul cases of non-perishable goods sported his agency’s name across his back – the Coastal Atheists and Secular Humanists (otherwise know as CASH).
Helping others gives me joy as I do so in service to God. My volunteer service is an extension of the love I feel for Him. I believe that if we love God, we will also love others and strive to share His love for them in everything we do.
How appropriate, I thought, that this group’s acronym embodies materialism rather than the transcending value of a higher calling. CASH, whether it’s the name of a group of “freethinkers” or the means of purchasing goods and services, can never fully satisfy us like God can.
Even more so, how sad it must be to live through the unseen battle of a global pandemic without the full assurance that God is in control. Without that security, there can be no real satisfaction and no certainty. How empty one must be to identify this way.
I’m glad I don’t share such sentiments.
Instead, I take comfort in knowing that everything – including a previously unknown viral strain wreaking havoc in the world – is under our Creator’s control. As God tells us in Psalm 50, “every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.” (v.10-12)
There is no panic in a pandemic with that knowledge.
As for me, I prefer God over CASH – each and every day – but especially during a crisis.
Reference:
- Lipka, M. (2019, December 6). Ten facts about atheists. Pew Research. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/06/10-facts-about-atheists/