You Tell Me

"Why do I need religion?", she asked.

It's 1.21AM on a Saturday morning I should have been spent catching up on my much needed rest.

Live firing the previous day caused me to wake at 4.15am and I haven't slept since then. I'm thoroughly shagged.

I actually wouldn't have minded that much if I was nice and comfy in my bed and perhaps on my way into slumberland already.

But I wasn't.

My brain was fried with trying to piece together a plan to rescue my friend who was wasted at Zouk. He didn't even recognise me when I eventually went to save him.

For the moments prior however, I was weary, dirty, smelly, my intelligence levels were at danger-low levels and I didn't need reason thrown at me to shake me up and break me down further.

But that's the way it works isn't it?

It's not only when the going is easy that I'm going to comfortably be in a position to defend the hardest questions of life. It's all the time.

I didn't answer that night though, cos I was too busy trying to sort poisonous politics out.

Perhaps I needed more time to ponder and give a credible answer, one that would prove my position on the matter as absolute and correct.

I had half the mind however, to immediately reply:

"Why do you not need religion?"

Pushing the burden of answer to the critic; but it seemed so cowardly, as if I were running away.

The other half of me wanted to hit the HELLO-DID-YOU-JUST-ASK-ME-THAT-STUPID-QUESTION button as if it weren't apparent enough already.

The usual "cause God is everything you want and need and you can't live without Him and you'll need Him to be there to comfort shield and protect you and give you strength and be your closest friend to confide in and love like you've never known before" blah blah blah blah blah..............

But as those words ran through my mind, I was like, that's incredibly boring, true as it might be, and I didn't want to flood her with orthodox answers.

How that turns so many people away.

In this dot com generation what people need are short, striking answers that interest them to listen beyond their 3 second attention span.

So I searched the inner contours of my small, quite-unused brain for something different, even as I rushed all over the place to baby-sit possibly the biggest baby ever.

And as the next day began and I went about rushing my chores I kept flipping the question over in my mind.

And as Sunday reared it's head and I went to buy Mee Goreng from Gluttons Bay at 2AM to bring back to the Padang to eat cos I was staying overnight guarding the Army Half Marathon stores for OCS, I was still perplexed.

Then it hit me.

I don't know.

I can't know.

I'm not knowledgeable or powerful enough.

I can't tell you why you need religion, anymore than I can prove why God exists.

I can't tell you what works for me because we're all different and it probably won't work for you.

Sure, philosophically I can answer the question "Why do people need religion?" in a general context fully and soundly.

It would go along the lines of:

"People have a natural need to live and interact with each other, and communally there must be something that keeps them united and working together, as if for a higher purpose, thus the need to have something greater than themselves to believe in and live for, hence religion."

In a nutshell, but this is just generally. Applies best to tribes.

But specifically, I can't tell anybody why he or she needs religion.

Only you have the answer to that question.

You know exactly why you need it, but yet one easily weighs the scale leaning on the need-not side because the need side seems way too easy to believe and accept.

But it true, it is incredulously easy to accept.

That's the wonder of Christianity, but that's another topic for another day.

I can tell you why I need religion, but I can't tell you why you need it.

I need God because I have nothing else to live for.

I can only pray that God reveals to you why you need Him, and why you need Him so desperately right now.

Everybody does.

I do all the time too. I fall so often.

And my one single hope is that when He comes and offers you exactly what you need, you don't ignore Him or turn away.

He'll always come.

You will always need Him.

How?

Why?

I don't know, you tell me.