I am an Atheist.

I went to class, paid my dues, then situated myself in the library for a period of hibernation (but, not the nice kind where you can sleep). After a good long stretch of solving problems, my friend, Rachelle, stopped by to bestow some lucky pencils on me (this isn't just some random occurrence, I had a test...ok?). We sat, studied, and occasionally talked. It was nice. But, then she had to leave to get herself some lunch (the poor girl).

A pile of eraser shavings and 5 pages of paper later, I left the library to get a much needed cup o' caffeine. As I walked out of Starbucks, I saw two friends sitting together chatting. I joined and enjoyed the conversation. As I was walking one of them back to their class (this sounds as if I'm some sort of guardian), we saw a man preaching/conversing with students out in one of the common areas. It was obvious he was a believer in Christ, but the two of us wanted to stay a little while longer to figure out why he was there.

For the most part, what he was saying was based on theology that mimics my own, and I found it rather an odd phenomena to see this middle-aged man doing this on a college campus (then, I was reminded of the atheist.com people who were outside one of my class buildings earlier last week). Soon enough, there was a person who declared himself an atheist. The preacher and this man's conversation started off somewhat civilized (as civilized as two people with totally different beliefs can be). It became apparent very quickly what this atheist truly thought of God.


"Eff you man. I don't care who this effing God really is. He's been an unjust effing a-hole. I don't want anything to do with his sh**...."

He continued talking to the preacher like this. The more he said, the harder it was to hear. Finally, I turned to Whitney with tears in my eyes; she asked if we needed to go.

Calmly, we walked away from the commons. Just as we left, two police vehicles came up and unloaded several police officers. They wrote a citation for the preacher (I could write an entire book about my thoughts with concern to this part of the story...blood=boiled). Nothing too exciting happened after that, the man continued to preach.

When I started to walk away the second time, still shaken up by what the atheist had said, it became all too clear.

I am no different than that atheist.

I hurl curses at God everyday when I choose to sin against him. Before I realized the salvation of a holy God, my entire life was characterized by blasphemy.

Do I get mournful over my sin like I did with that atheist's words? Do I truly understand the severity of my actions?

There's nothing that I could ever do to separate me from a life full of hurled curses towards God. But, I know this for a fact. My sins have been forgiven. What's even more amazing, is that even when I sin and am forgiven, God sees me as righteous. To him I'm not just some low-life that he has to keep forgiving.

Ro. 3:21-26

²¹But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²²the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ²⁶It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.