The Raison D’être is a baffling thing. It convicts a person and demands his life. To live in accordance to a conviction is one thing, but to die for it is another. How can a man’s Reason for Existence threatens his existence, or demands an end to his existence?
How can one be convicted in heart to choose to leave the country of his birth in order to live amongst the poor and to serve amongst those who are in need?
How can one be convicted in heart to continue to paint, act, illustrate, or pursue photography in the streets of New York while starving?
How can one be convicted in heart to invest years of his life and monies into business endeavors that have no guarantee for success?
The selfless missionaries, the starving artists, and the fearless entrepreneurs are all archetypes of people with such convictions.
Reading stories about these radical individuals often baffles me when I was a young person. And it was only later on in life, when I was much older, then did it dawn on me that a belief is what a person holds on to, but a conviction is what holds on to a person. When conviction grips, there can be no escape.
But if convictions are baffling, love is just as baffling as well.
How can one be convicted in heart to love, and to utter these words: ‘for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part’?
How can one be convicted in heart to love, and to ‘always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres’?
How can one be convicted in heart to love ‘one another’, and to lay down his life for his friends in order to fulfill a ‘greater love’?
Yet to some of us, such radical convictions and radical love are baffling but very real. That same kind of convictions and love were displayed to us by Another who came before us. “We love because God first loved us”.
Love in its nature is a baffling thing, and so is conviction. But the heart in love often “has its reasons which reason knows nothing of” when abiding by convictions.
“We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart” as well.
Yes, He is our Raison D’être. Yes, His love is baffling. But yes, He is very real as well.
