Why I Believe in God

Why can’t I write this? I asked myself that question about 193 times yesterday. I mean, the subject matter was important to me. I had prayed about it. I had googled how to say, “Oh, my God,” in about six different languages. I had looked up passages of scripture and then decided how best not to use them. I was ready to write and it was going to be great! It wasn’t going to be a theological dissertation or a scientific presentation of evidence proving that He exists. I wasn’t going to proselytize, evangelize or, worse yet, criticize. I was simply going to tell everybody why I believe in God and then, when non-believers read it, they were going to believe in God, too!

Well, I sat and I wrote. And I deleted. A lot. “Maybe I need a little break,” I thought. So I made myself another cup of tea. I went outside and played Slime Ball with Gracie. A lot. I sat here and looked out of the window and made cloud pictures. I even called my mother. But somewhere between my brain and the screen, my thoughts would scatter and refuse to fit into the words that I had chosen for them. Finally, when I had worked myself into a really nasty mood, I decided that today was just not the day. I saved my notes, closed the program and set out to do some mindless chores around the house.

I made spaghetti sauce for supper. I washed and dried some strawberries and put them in the freezer. I unloaded the dishwasher and hand washed a few special pieces that were in the sink. I played Slime Ball some more. Eventually, I ended up in our bedroom changing the sheets on the bed.

As I tugged and tightened, I talked to God. I talked to Him about friends and family who were in some sort of crisis or the other. I talked to Him about my plans to save money. I talked to Him about JD3 and Anna. And I talked to Him about how aggravated I was with myself for not being able to write this. Then, out of nowhere, there was a brilliant flash of light!

Ok, that’s not entirely true. There was no flash of light. But I did have a moment of crystal clear understanding. I realized that it’s not really a matter of why I believe so much as it’s a matter of how could I not believe. I mean, He’s my best friend. He’s here with me all of the time. When the sky is blue and the birds are singing and all is right in my world, He’s here. When the sky turns dark and the storms rage and the music stops, He’s here. I can’t tell you that I’ve ever heard His voice or that I’ve actually seen Him in person. But I can tell you that when I stood crying in the shower because life had become too much and I called out to Him, I felt His presence and I was comforted.

And He’s not here because I want him to be here. He’s here because He wants to be here.

Here’s how I see it: God created the world. (Now, you may come to me and say “Oh, no. Here’s a scientific explanation for the whole thing.” And I would probably say, “You know. You’re right about that!” I just happen to believe that God was the scientist behind it all.) After He created the world, He created us because it was so beautiful, he wanted to share it. While he was building our bodies and our minds, he hardwired a Belief chip deep into the mainframe, so that we’d want to share it back. So that we’d want to be with Him.

But, we messed up. We messed up the earth and we messed up each other. And when we couldn’t clean up those messes, when we couldn’t keep children from dying or innocents from being slaughtered or people from starving, some of us tried to turn off that little chip, saying, “If there was a God, He wouldn’t let these things happen.” But it can’t be turned off. This embedded instinct keeps working, even in non-believers. Instead of a belief in God, it becomes a belief in Fate or Karma or Luck or even Science. No matter what it’s called, it’s still a belief or a reliance on something bigger and more powerful than we are.

While it saddens me to hear someone say they don’t believe, it is never my intent to cram my God down anybody’s throat. And I hope that these heartfelt words are not taken as invitation by non-believers to prove to me that I’m wrong. All of your arguments and evidence wouldn't change the way I think, anyway. I just wanted to tell you why I believe in Him.

I know I said that I wasn’t going to quote a bunch of scripture. That would be like trying to prove the theory of evolution using only articles written by Darwin. But, since I did all of that research and I hate to see it go to waste, I’d like to leave you with these two passages:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalms 139:14

And you shall seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with all of your heart. Jeremiah 29:13