Thoughts About God

Recently, I checked out a book about exorcism and possession from the local library as part of my research for The Forever Saga. It was a book about 5 real, tape-recorded exorcisms of varying circumstances. As I read it, I realized two things: one, that its vivid depictions of spiritual evil scared me; and two, that the evil in the book was sensationalized to make for a good book, and that I could have learned more accurate information from a much more benevolent book: the Bible.

The frightened feelings I grappled with after reading that exorcism book also revealed to me that over the past several years, I had gone on a slowly descending personal slope away from true faith in God. I made a lot of the right decisions on the outside - following God's direction in career, location, giving, serving, and so on. Yet on the inside, I wasn't doing the daily things - reading the Bible, praying, spreading the Gospel to others - that are the backbone of a person's faith. In other words, I only showed up for the big stuff, and let go of consistency. When you do that, life tends to be a jagged rollercoaster of highs, and mind-numbing lows.

I truly believe that God worked in the negativity of the fear from that book, and led me closer to Him in the process. Not everyone is religious, but what I know comes from living it: my life has never had more meaning than when God has been a part of it.

I heard a fantastic message yesterday, which gave me perspective on what it means to have belief in God. The speaker talked about how many people do not believe in God because of the injustice in the world - the suffering, the natural disasters, the plight of the poor, pandemics like AIDs and malaria, and so on. The speaker went on to share that if we believe God does not exist, then there is no effective scale of what is actually right and wrong. Whether you think God is real or not, the fact remains that the Bible is clear about what is right or wrong on many subjects. If you take that away, then who among us has the authority to say what is right and wrong? No one; it's left up to us to decide what's right for ourselves, and not judge others. That is called moral relativism.

Yet here's the problem: if what's "right" is different from person to person, then wouldn't it be "right" for a john to leave his wife and kids in New York, fly to Atlanta, spend the day getting serviced by child prostitutes, and make an evening flight back home? Wouldn't it be "right" for a hardscrabble woman to sell their children off into slavery just so she won't go hungry? Or wouldn't it also be "right" for someone to make promises to get into a position of power, only to renege on them as it suits them?

Without a universal code of ethics, there is no justice. You can't say God isn't real because of the world's injustice, because without God, what is an injustice to you is a way of life for someone else.

Needless to say, that blew my mind. It is a fundamental contradiction to deny God on the grounds of justice, when without Him there is no such thing.

Another issue I've been grappling with is the whole "remote tribe" problem. That is, if people need to hear the Gospel in order to be saved and go to Heaven, then how can primitive, remote groups of people in the third world ever have the chance? If the spread of a religion is dependent upon humanity spreading the message from person to person, then what about the "untouchables" that never see another person outside their tribe? This isn't an issue for most of us, but then again, if you're reading this, you're likely in the minority of over-privileged people in the world. Plus, the Christian God claims to be a compassionate God to all people; Jesus Christ commissions his followers to go to ALL nations.

This is what I've learned: if God is real, then He created each and every human being that has ever lived, and He has written His law not just in the Bible, but upon our very hearts. Whether we listen to this or not is up to us, but seriously, this is how God reaches everyone; not just the over-privileged, not just the civilized, not just those who can afford Internet access or are within range of a library. Sometimes in our affluent American culture, we get insulated. We take cars, stores, medical services, and ready information for granted most of the time. With all these commodities, there's not much room for God's miracles.

And yet, it's easy to forget that most of the world is not so fortunate. But in a way, perhaps they are more fortunate than us? The quiet voice of God in one heart can make a remote tribe right in the sight of the Lord. Miraculous healings where there is insufficient medical care is not uncommon to those willing to go to the hard-to-reach places and administer care.

In all of these paragraphs, there is an underlying point: a real God is known to all people in a variety of ways, is compassionate where we listen and allow Him to be, and works to bring justice to all, even if it takes awhile or is hard to see at the time.

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