The hope which lies within

For quite a while during my last year of high school, I was lost. As I had started to become more interested in my faith, I started to really wonder why more people weren't followers of Christ, because Christianity was so easy for me to understand. That was also the time I started to learn how wrong I was. I had stopped giving the glory to God and started to become prideful. The more I started to research the problems people had with Christianity, the more I realized how little assurance I had in my faith. What ensued was an endless trail of questions, answers, research, and more questions. Although I am much more grounded in my faith today, I am still following that endless trail, and I believe in its utmost importance. 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."  This is important for so many reasons but i am finding out now that it is most important because there are all to many people out there who are ready to tear your beliefs limb from limb given the chance. Please do not be fooled. People do not do this because they "know" that they are right, they do this because they are prompted to by a hate which they do not recognize. A hate which knows the truth, but fights to suppress it.