Growing up, the idea of God was presented as a possibility. God, the man upstairs as it were, was at least an option of the table for me as a child. Granted, He was not Jesus Christ, the Messiah, but He was at least mentioned.
Years later, when I finally did meet Christ, I believe I was much more open to saying “yes” because at the very least, I believed in a God, if not the God.
Ironically, now that I am devoted to Jesus Christ, my family wonders why–how. Why have I become a “Christian” (often said as a dirty word). Why do I believe so wholeheartedly and completely in God?
This question is a lot trickier than it appears. I’d like to give some simple, succinct, yet powerful answer, but the truth is…I can’t. The answer is so much more….
Instead of answering the question of why I believe in God, in part, comes down to a series of events and the subsequent emotions associated with those events.
Here’s what I mean: God saves. I feel secure. God protects. I feel safe. God redeems. I feel hope. God gives. I feel humbled. And so on and so on…
My belief that God is real and alive and living in me, is not a guessing game, but rather me acknowledging who He is and what He has done for me. I can look back over my life and plainly see when and where God has stepped in, directed, prompted, challenged, or encouraged me.
Not only can I see Him working in my life, but I can also feel Him. Now this is where my unbelieving family gets even more skeptical. Feel Him? Yes. Feel His presence.
Sure, it sounds nebulous. It even sounds a bit irrational and kooky, but anyone who truly loves Jesus knows what it is to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. Once it is experienced it cannot be mistaken. It cannot be faked or forgotten…and it certainly cannot be forfeited. You will always want more.
In knowing God, I also know that one of the strongest pieces of evidence that He is real and working on me is because of well, me. I am not who I used to be. I am a new creation. I don’t say this casually or flippantly, just throwing about a cliche scriptural reference.
I am a new creation. I am so far removed from who I used to be and who I thought I was that it can only point to belief in God. I’m not sure if people change on their own. I don’t think they really do. There has to be a catalyst and mine was Jesus Christ.
Lastly, as my faith has grown and matured and my eyes have been opened, I see more and more evidence for the existence of God all around. From the vastness of the stars, to the raging oceans, to the dense forest, to the profound love of my husband, to the sound of my children’s laughter, to watching my belly swell with life and feeling that life move inside of me–only to be born through what can only be described as a miracle…
I see God everywhere. The evidence of His hand is unmistakable. Yet, I will just continue to pray for those who have yet to have their eyes opened.
Why do you believe in God? Is it factual, faith, emotion, all of the above? What did you believe about God before knowing Him?
As you have observed, “This question is a lot trickier than it appears.”
Introspectively, it doesn’t get any easier when you begin the answer with being raised in a Christian home. Being raised in Christianity is a wonderful thing, but at the same time it doesn’t stand alone as a good answer – especially when that same answer provides a reason for why so many people are NOT Christians. Merely following in your parents’ footsteps religiously is a good starting point, but it can’t end there.
So, the answer then comes to be made up of lots of little answers. The prayer I prayed during an Oral Roberts TV special when I was seven. A prayer during a Christian music youth event when in my early teens. Making my own choice in my late teens about what church I wanted to identify with. Graduating from Bible College. Getting burned out in church activities. And now my current period of re-evaluation about just how much of the evangelical model of Christianity I can really identify with.
I’ve never not known God, but my personalization of that relationship has taken different forms at various points along the path.
I guess that is the basis of my answer. It has always been personal, ever since I was very young, and it has rarely been static. There are always little tweaks and changes going on. Based on that I can say that it is dynamic.
Certainly there are facts, emotions, and areas of blind trust that feed into the mix. I could write whole books on examples of that.
Often in the last dozen years, my religion has found itself boiled down to a very simple statement, “I love you, Daddy… and I trust you.” Sometimes repeating that statement dozens of times a day is what gets me through one day to the next day. I respond to His love, and I find Him to be worthy of my trust.
Ed,
I love your response to this question, especially as someone who has always known God.
It shows such evolution and the process of sanctification. So much of it is emotion, but also trust, process, evidence.
And this: “I love you, Daddy… and I trust you.” Sometimes repeating that statement dozens of times a day is what gets me through one day to the next day.”
such humility and such trust…
“I love You, Daddy…and I trust You.”
Bingo. That says it all.
For me, the best explanation is th simple yet elegant reply the blind man Jesus healed when grilled by the Pharisees: All I know is this: I was blind, but now I see.
I smiled as I read your answer. What a beautiful yet simple explanation, so full of truth and His grace.
This is good – I feel the same way. For me there never has been a time when I did not know Jesus as my personal savior – but my knowledge and feeling of my relationship has grown by leaps and bounds during the different seasons of my life – closer and more intimate – I also feel safe and secure.
I went to Catholic school K-12 and from the time I was a baby I attended church every Sunday and prayed before meals, bed, etc. It seems God was always a part of my life, but the person I have become; the faith I have; the relationship I have with Christ is very different from the rest of my family’s. Christian wasn’t a dirty word, it was a term everyone easily accepted for themselves in the same way they accepted their eye color. Being Christian was “normal” in a casual, nonchalant, “private”, nothing exciting, kind of way. So when I chose a relationship with Christ in High School instead of being called Christian in a snooty tone I was called a Jesus Freak or religious or devout, anything that would establish that I was different from them!
I find explaining a real relationship with Christ to those who casually call themselves Christian is actually harder than explaining it those who don’t identify as Christian. People who don’t really know Jesus but claim Christianity are difficult, they say things like, “I was baptized as a baby” or “I got confirmed, I’m good. I don’t need to hear about Jesus.” But they have no concept of a relationship, of being a new creation, of dying to self. Either way, I explain why I believe in Jesus the same way and in a similar way as you.
I believe in God/Jesus because He has made Himself known to me through out my whole life. I believe because I heard Him calling and I answered. I believe because I hear His voice, at times verbally, but mostly in my heart and soul. I believe because of what He has done in my life, how He has changed me. I believe because I feel His love and His presence. I believe because I know Him just as surely as I know my husband. Knowing Him, believing in Him is factual, faith, and emotional. It is all of the above, because knowing Him is everything.
Beautiful post, Nicole. Loved it!
With me, I believe because God’s making me new every day.
I didn’t accept Christ until I was 24. By the time, I was a real a**hole. I used other people, I was abusive, I mocked others I deemed weaker. I was Gordon Gekko without the money. It was all about sex, money and power for me.
Then I found Christ and overnight found myself in a place where I wanted to serve others. I would get a check in my spirit when I wanted to do something I knew was wrong. I would find myself volunteering to help people at work or in my apartment complex.
Over the years I have been far from perfect and there have been many things He’s needed to knock from me but the ongoing transformation into someone more like Christ is proof enough to me that God’s real and that He’s working.
Because He chose me, for whatever reasons He had.
Nothing in me wanted Him. Nothing in me wanted to be a Christian. I mocked Him and His followers. I made it a point to verbally and intellectually abuse them.
He chose me. His reasons and His reasons alone.
And there it is.
Wow, those are difficult questions. I like what Donald says above, “He chose me.” I grew up in a Christian family and believed in God all of my life. I frequently felt the tug of the Holy Spirit on my heart throughout my childhood and teen years. Sometimes I listened, sometimes I didn’t.
The belief strengthened and occasionally weakened as I grew up. Within the past few years I’ve been working on who God is to me, and not what my family, the church, or pastors say about him.
“Within the past few years I’ve been working on who God is to me, and not what my family, the church, or pastors say about him.”
Jeremy,
My view on Him is based solely on His view of me: He calls me redeemed. He calls me blessed. He calls me forgiven. He calls me empowered. He calls me His own. He calls me as His son.
As His son. He is my Father, my one true Father. I cry Abba! Romans 8:15
Try starting there, in sonship, and see what happens to your walk with our God and Father. It will revolutionize EVERYTHING about you, believe me.
Donald, I agree. And ironically enough, that is where I started a few years ago. Jack Frost’s books “Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship” and “Experiencing Father’s Embrace” did an amazing job to help bring me to the point of revelation (in addition to many other things God had brought me through in the prior years).
Jeremy,
I had not heard of these books. I shall definitely Google them! Sweet!
Jeremy,
I checked out the Slavery to Sonship book on Amazon. Very exciting stuff!
http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Slavery-Sonship-Jack-Frost/dp/0768423856
i believe in Him because of the cross. my heart was opened to the depravity of sin and how badly i was in need of a Savior. coz i know of no other God would die for His people and carry the weight of the world on His shoulders..only my Jesus and He did it for me. everything else about my relationship with Him is just icing on the cake.
I believe in God because He revealed Himself to me. He quickened this dead man walking and made me a new creature. He granted me grace and mercy when I deserved death and hell. I still do in comparison to His indescribable Glory and Holiness.
I love Him because He first loved me. I don’t know why but I thank Him everyday that He did, does, and will.
One of the reasons I know God exists is because of the impossibility of the contrary.
I’m going to steal C.S. Lewis’ words, because he says it better than I ever could:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Wow this has certainly made me think!
Why do you believe in God? Truthfully, I have always believed that there has had to be someone guiding us. I mean how did we get here? I don’t believe in all the evolution blah blah boring biology class. I know that the reason that we are here is beyond our control and power and was taught very early on from a child that GOD is GOD, respect him because he is your Father. I remember one day very clearly, I was about 7 or 8 years old and I was at my grandmothers house.
It was raining and thundering something fierce and I quite frankly had gotten tired of it because I would rather be outside playing. I so boldly stated “God why don’t you just shut up with all this” and before I could even blink my eyes a crack of lightning struck down and knocked off the power. Umm…needless to say I knew at that moment who was boss and that I better watch who I’m talking to. I believe that moment was proof enough for me to believe what everyone at church and my parents were telling me.
From then on I grew closer with Him but to me that moment stands out period. Fact, fait, emotion all rolled up into one! It wasn’t until I was around 23 that I fully understood what having a personal relationship with Christ was about. I darn sure respected God with my childhood experience but the Holy Spirit is my comfort, my peace, and my hope.
Loling so hard at your “boring biology class” comment. Haha. It was just a coincidence that the lightning struck when you thought that.
You can’t believe in evolution. It is an observed phenomenon with 150 years plus data supporting it. If there was something that disproved it, that model would have been scraped. But modern science revolves around this fact that evolution has been observed, tested, and quantified. So by saying you don’t believe in evolution, you are really saying you refuse to acknowledge reality.
I believe in God because I have an experiential relationship with Him. I know, without a doubt, that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him, because He lives in me, and I have felt His presence, heard His voice, and experienced His power. He is not intangible or unknowable – my experience of Him is enough proof for me.
Haven’t been able to stop thinking about this post! And the comments are great reading. I’ve linked to you here: http://justanotherfoolforchrist.blogspot.com/2011/07/then-i-saw-his-face-now-im-believer.html
I’ve always been a believer, but to what extent was never static. Since I was raised in a Christian home I had always had the Holy Spirit in my ear. Even when I knew I was doing wrong and could feel the shame, I trudged on (such is the tragic tale of sin). After high school I felt pretty good about my faith (which is exactly where arrogance will get you, be careful)and so I prayed a prayer one night, and I asked God to test my faith, like Job, test me and push me to my limits, lets see if I believe as strongly as I think I do.
I had a job as an EMT right after high school, which was amazing for me. A year later and I find my father has had an affair, leaves my mother, absolutely shatters the family. Around a year after that I lose my job, leaving my mother and I to pay all the bills while he runs around spending his retirement money.
I still to this day think that unless you have had deep damage in your life, you will never truly know where your faith stands. Unless you have actually felt the pressure of leaning against Jesus, to feel Him hold you up off the ground and not just assume He is one of your many legs.
I have recently started to get into theology and now see what it actually meant and cost for God to do what he did, just for us. Reading minds like C.S. Lewis, Aquinas, and Plato, I have come to see God in a manner that not only satisfies my heart, but my mind. I had taken a religion and turned it into a living, breathing relationship with the creator.
Though like anybody I am far from complete, I know construction is underway.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” -C.S. Lewis
Thanks for this message. It’s a really refreshing and accurate desrcription. You put into words what I’ve been thinking for some time.
Why do you believe in god? Because your brain has been damaged by years of abuse. You are not only a threat to yourself and others but a living flesh and blood weapon of mass destruction waiting to explode.
To say you believe in God, says you also must believe in the book that his story originated from. To believe in any of this book, you must also believe in every single word of it. Every single horror and abomination inflicted upon humanity from it wicked and sinful texts.
To say you believe in god, says you must agree with everything this book says, and you must accept everything done as good and just, and holy.
To make that statement.. Would require a level of insanity that is absolutely staggering.
Hey Atwar911,
I would enjoy talking about this with you. My foundational presupposition is belief in God. In order to understand you better what is your foundational belief?
My foundational beliefs are that of a child raised in a strict baptist home.. A home that was at all times striking the fear of fire and brimstone and eternal torture into the minds of the helpless children trapped within its walls..
My current adult beliefs, despite the massive amount of programming and mental torture and abuse inflicted upon as a child has fortunately rejected this wicked and horrible infection of the mind known as faith. A person who knows fist hand the horrors and abominations inflicted upon the world by those who consider themselves faithful.
I was like you once, but then I actually read books on the subject and no longer cling to atheistic dogmas or straw men arguments. If you want to have a dialogue about God then I and the others here will happily engage you. However, if you come here with ludicrous and theologically innaccurate statements looking for a flame war by blasphemy then I urge you to keep lurking /b/, that is, if it hasn’t been overrun by cancer yet.
You use words like “wicked” and “horrible”, where do those value judgments come from? On your blog, you use word like “shame” and “justice”, those too are words or concepts that if there is no God have no foundation. It’s kind of like denying oxygen exist, yet you still breathe. Is it possible you’ve denied trust in your Creator and have instead chosen to put your trust into the creation?
To deny that statement requires a tragic degree of spiritual blindness that is absolutely heartbreaking.
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
How ironic.
I dont believe in God-I know there is a God.I was raised in a Christain home to beleive in God but I probably would have quit during my teenage years if I didnt find out there was a God.
Atheists often ask Christains where is the Proof?I actaully have a tangible concrete non-philosphical answer to that-The Proof is in My church
In my Church I see my Pastor lay on thehands sick and theyrecover instantly.Aids,cancer all cured.Ive seen Crippled walk,blind see,deaf hear-Ive seen reallife miracles and had Reallife miracles in my life.My mums best fiend was healed of Oedama.A friend of my mine was healed of asthma in the church.Another got healed of an eye deformity.
I saw all this things in my church growing up and it made me realisethat God is real-its not just a bunch of stories.This is why it is important to be in aChurchwhere the Power Of Godis demonstrated regurlarly.Otherwise youd be frustrated and start asking yourself is there a God becuse you dont see the miracles he promised you.
In case youre wondering my Church its ChristEmbassy aka believers Loveworld.The Pastor is Pastor Chris Oyakhilome
You KNOW there’s a God huh?
You’ve seen preachers heal the sick instantly huh?
and i’m sure you’ve seen magicians REALLY saw women in halves too huh?
I bet you also think the pictures coming out of that talking magic box in your living room are all real too huh?
What a waste of gray matter.
Yes, I know there is a God. That’s the whole point of this post. I didn’t ask if there is a God or isn’t a God. I asked why, for those of us who do know there is a God, we believe that? The distinction is a clear one. I’m not opposed to debating the issue, but this isn’t the post to do so.