Are you for real?

Did you know that if you Google the question, “Does God exist?” you will receive 7,530,000 search results in 0.42 seconds? I don’t need to labor through all of these search results because I know that at the core of the question, there is only one undisputed answer and that is that God can neither be proven to exist or [thankfully] proven not to exist. 

As I tap out these words on my laptop, I’m comfortably reclining on a chaise in my backyard enjoying some dried mango, mixed nuts and a Pellegrino. All of my senses are fully engaged. At the moment, I am experiencing zero pain in my body. I can see, hear, taste, smell and touch and I’m literally doing all of those remarkable things right now. It’s springtime and the yard is popping with brilliant colors. The six redwood trees along my back fence that I could touch the top of when we moved here seventeen years ago are now easily reaching fifty feet into the heavens as they stand watch over my domain. The lawn is a vivid emerald green, the Dogwoods and Wisteria are in full bloom and my dog is fixated on a certain squirrel. There are two black crows flying and flirting with each other in my sycamore tree and beyond my fence line, I can see vibrant green hills covered in dense vegetation which are no doubt alive and bustling with deer and cows and many other critters that tend to elude me whenever I’m ripping through their domain on my mountain bike. 

So, as I sit and ponder the age-old question, “does God exist?” I think it’s only fair and reasonable to first try and establish some sort of grid for the reality of my surroundings and the undeniable miracle of life itself. I would consider myself a fairly levelheaded, reasonably intelligent, rational thinking human being but I don’t assume I’m about to develop some unique knowledge, awareness or profound moment of epiphany around this topic of the existence of a Creator and quite honestly, I doubt you will either. Truth is, whether you’re as smart as Einstein or as dumb as SpongeBob, we are all in this thing called “life” together and we are all born with an unquenchable longing for meaning, significance and purpose. I believe we all also share an awe-inspiring sense of wonder and appreciation for this universe we’ve been temporarily dropped into and thus would argue that at our core, we all long to worship something bigger than us, not because we are weak or incapable but because deep down, we know are a part of something so beyond us and so inexplicably profound that the notion that there must be something bigger than us must be logically considered and can’t be sensibly denied. 

Enter faith. What else do we have? I may not know you, but I know you have faith. Did you know that it takes as much [maybe more] faith to believe there is no God, than to believe that He is there? There is a key passage in scripture about faith. Hebrews 11:1 reads, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” I love this and I need to remember it often. For some of you reading this, the assurance of God’s existence and the issue of faith in God has been a non-issue for years. You are secure and resolve in your faith and that’s great! For others reading this, you are likely wrestling and have been for a long time. The notion that He is out there, let alone knows you and loves you, is too much for you to absorb yet you’ve remained unable to shelve the idea indefinitely because something about all of this resonates deeply in your soul. 

To believe or not to believe. At some point, each one of us will need to resolve this issue one way or another for ourselves. We can only lean on our past inheritance of faith (or lack thereof) for so long before finally reaching a point in our lives where we own it, one way or another, for ourselves. This doesn’t mean we have to have it all figured out. In fact, if you find someone who says they’ve finally got it all figured out, run for the hills! Each of us, on our individual faith journeys, will experience moments of confusion, clarity, frustration and wonder as we strive to know all and concede to know some. One lifetime is not enough to reconcile the mysteries of God. Thankfully, He’s given us eternity to for that…

“For we live by faith, not by sight.” – 2 Corinthians 5:7

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” - C. S. Lewis

Let’s go get it!