We are commanded to believe, but no where does scripture say we are to choose to believe. Belief doesn't come through an act of our will. It comes through an act of God...by the word of God. We believe as a result of what God does.
Yet many, like me, understand commands as made to the reasoning and volition of man. And when we are presented with a command, we certainly do consider it, assess it and its source, decide and choose whether or not to obey it, and then reject it or obey it accordingly.
And we see the gracious act of gracious merciful loving God being His provision of His Word - Son and writing - with His power inherent in it and His convincing Spirit being active in the world and His human messengers He sends being there at interesting times and churches on almost every corner in some areas of the world and His Book being the greatest selling book of record and...
Since you and I had such a wonderful exchange of thoughts over the past few days, I was thinking about it last evening and how you seem similar to others I have spoken to over the years. You seem,
and please see this word "seem", to have had some form of experience that
IMO may be causing you to elevate experience and read it into the Text. Maybe that experience is as simple as not believing one moment and all of a sudden believing. But isn't this how it works? Certainly, there's a transition
point in a change of thinking, whether methodical or seemingly abrupt.
What you say about belief is very philosophical and has been discussed in philosophy for ages. It's also part of theology especially in certain groups who posit that belief is completely passive. You seem to believe this.
Yet the verb "believe" is active. The action is done by the subject. To make it passive some of the proponents of passive believing will take the word back to its root which means to persuade or be persuaded and will posit that we believe (active) because we are persuaded (passive). I've studied this and spoken with some of these thinkers and read their articles and was close to and watched some of the debating within the ranks. I remain unconvinced of their theory for many reasons. But it is an interesting one.
Back to the active concept of belief. I just responded to a good post by
@sawdust which listed many "believe" verses. I highlighted John1:12 which makes receiving Christ parallel to believing in Him.
@cv5 has posted several times from Strong's what receiving means. It's another active verb used in parallel to the active word "believe". It means to actively take something which elaborates to actively believe something.
That same post listed John3:36 which parallels believing and obeying, both active verbs. Whether or not we like it due to our theology, God seems clearly to say belief is obedience.
The Scriptural evidence for active belief is extensive. We either have to see these actions as voluntary or involuntary. I'll leave the one system that posits more of an involuntary notion unnamed so as not to offend you. Some will modify that notion somewhat with the philosophical theory of compatibilism which is another discussion in itself.
Lastly for now, if we were able to have you go through the path that led you to believe, I'm pretty certain we would identify many, many decisions and choices you made to get you to that point which I think
@HeIsHere described as "poof". I've had philosophical, logical, theological discussions about this concept. The reasonable conclusion was mostly that volition was involved in belief along the line of coming to belief though there certainly are holdouts.