The Practical Atheist

     I was caught by an expression in an article I read by Paul David Tripp. He called that condition where our theology is dead on, but we live as if God does not exist, being a "practical atheist." It refers to that disconnect between our beliefs and our behavior. Ideally, the knowledge that God's word says to prefer others over ourselves should translate into our attitude in the store check out line or when we drive in traffic, but often it does not. In more familiar words, we do not practice what we preach.

    We have faith that God is in sovereign control of the world, then doomscroll political posts and worry as if he has no idea what is going on, much less has control. We can believe he appointed the length of our lives before we were born and yet get blown about by every wind of health doctrine trying to postpone our appointment. And when people ask us about the reason for our good health, finances and/or abilities, and we credit those gifts to our own efforts, we are being practical atheists. Besides that, we have traded an opportunity to give glory to God and turned it toward ourselves, carbs, kale and cardio.

    I recently finished a short study on Solomon, the wisest human who ever lived. He knew his gifts of wisdom, wealth, and long life came directly from God because God told him so, yet Solomon ignored God's commands about intermarriage with unbelievers hundreds of times. I know many of his marriages were to secure political alliances, and obviously marriage was not as serious a commitment as in our one-spouse-at-a-time culture. But he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, that adds up to 1000 missed opportunities to ask the Lord for pre-marital counseling.

    Here are a couple bits of wisdom I got out of the study:

True wisdom is displayed, not in those desperate circumstances when big decisions are needed, but in the daily, seemingly insignificant, choices we make when we think discernment is unnecessary. 

We seldom sin for lack of knowing better, we choose to sin because we think we know better than the Lord about how we should live. 

    It is impractical to be an atheist in Montana, where the Creator's fingerprint is everywhere. But God did not reveal himself to us so our theology would be sound, he did it so, through us, his reflection would be seen. And that takes lot of practice.