One time, someone asked me how I knew God was real.
Now, that’s not one of those easy to answer, good for small talk type questions like, “So… how ‘bout this weather?” or “Where do you want to stop for lunch?” This was more on the level of, “Do you love me?” or “What is the meaning of life?” -- except, in my head, it was 50 times bigger.
I could spend all day telling you how I know God is real. I could spend all day talking about the magic of sunsets and the promise and hope of sunrises. I could tell you that every time I see a big, towering mountain range or stand next to the ocean, I feel so incredibly small, yet somehow purposeful, intentional. I could tell you about the chills I felt on my arms sitting by the river with a small group of church friends one summer morning about a year ago, the first time it truly clicked in my mind that Jesus isn’t some religion -- He’s a man, one who’s still being talked about thousands of years later, thousands of years after He died on the cross. For you. For me. And more than that, He’s not just a man but the Son of God -- the Son of God died for you. I could tell you all about the rush of joy I feel when I remember how He already fought and won all of my battles. How He so infinitely loves me, how in Him there is endless joy and freedom.
Yes, I could tell you about all of those things, but you could hit me with the theory of evolution, and with the big bang theory, and whatever other theories are floating around out there. And if you’re science-minded, which I most certainly am not, it would be hard for me to disprove those in one little article, because chances are, you’ve got formulas and equations and all sorts of things to back them up.
However, as a glass-half-full person, I like to think that those theories are exactly that -- just theories. And being theories, that means they haven’t been proven; they’re lacking enough standing evidence to call them straight facts. So, maybe it’d be hard for me to prove Christianity to you, but since those theories haven’t been proven either, we’ll call it even. A fair playing ground, if you will.
So now that the playing field has been leveled, we can weigh our options. Say you live your entire life believing with your entire being that there is a God. If, when it’s all said and done, you find out there, in fact, was no God, nothing’s really going to happen to you. You’ll just be chilling, having little late night graveyard parties and haunting the neighbors. And, of course, when it’s all said and done, if after believing in God you find out that you were in fact right, you’ve got an entire eternity of the purest and most unimaginable forms of love and life and joy -- a future I can’t even begin to describe. But -- let’s say after living a life without God, you die to find out there was one. That’s when things start to go south.
You see, my beliefs and yours aside, thinking one hundred percent statistically, not following Jesus is risky. But by following Him, you can’t lose. And you won’t lose. Because it’s not really a question of whether He’s real -- it’s a question of whether, in this crazy, chaotic, busy world, we’re able to look past it all and really see Him, a question of whether we’re willing to accept Him.
And, if you ask me, if by believing that I am loved by Jesus and experiencing life to the fullest, feeling so free, feeling like the world is at my fingertips, feeling not only accepted but wanted, and really truly being confident in what I’m doing with my life, really knowing that I’m where I was intended to be -- if by believing those things I’m running a small risk of being wrong, I’d say it’s worth it. The idea of Jesus gives you a kind of hope that a life without Him can’t and won’t. The idea of a happy ending, of being able to be forgiven no matter how far gone we feel, of a love truer than any we’ve experienced, to me, is so wild and beautiful that I can’t say no. And I promise you if any of this sounds appealing to you -- if a life like that, a life in Jesus, sounds like one you’d want, you’ll soon realize along the way that the tiniest doubt in your mind has been erased. There’s no question about it. You’ll be able to look at a sunset, to hear the crashing of waves, and just know.
So, you ask, “What if God isn’t real?”
Oh, but what if He is?
