Questions, Part 2: Is God Real?

So we're diving into all the questions.Last week, I wrote about God, sin, and choice. I loved reading your comments; I could sense the gears in your brains and hearts whirring and popping as some of you took the conversation further. These posts, remember, are meant to be conversation starters, not stoppers.This week's question, from Maria: How do we know, without a question, without a single doubt, that God is real? And above all, how do we know whether or not we will be with our loved ones in heaven, and will we go immediately after death or after judgment day? Well that's it, isn't it?If there is a God who put everything in motion, in whose image we were created, and who will eventually restore and redeem all things, would it be so hard for that God to make things a little more obvious? The suffering we experience - in our own lives and in the wider world around us - tends to suggest that perhaps God isn't real. If God is real, how could God possibly sit by and endure such violence? If God is real, shouldn't things be better, or at least be getting better? Since they don't seem to be, we're left to believe in a God who could do something, but doesn't (in which case God is aloof, which feels uncomfortable at best, unconscionable at worst), or we're left to assume that God is a monster who somehow revels in seeing people suffer. If God isn't real, that at least explains all the pain, suffering, and evil we see and experience. We are not seeing the reality of the actual world if we do not at least wrestle with this agonizing question.Well, here's the thing of it: we can't know without a question, without a single doubt. The nature of faith itself makes that kind of certainty - without a single question, without a single doubt - impossible. In fact, I would argue that certainty in many ways undermines a faith that dares to be risky (what if I'm wrong?) and gritty (can this hold up to all the humanness that we obviously see)? Having faith that God exists does not necessarily equate with having utter certainty about that God which you believe exists.Let me explain.When we read the harrowing story of Moses leading God's people out of slavery and into the Promised Land, we find lots of faith in God, but almost no certainty. Will God eventually lead them out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land? Will the Red Sea part? Will the children of Israel ever stop complaining? Will Manna appear again the next day? If BBC could have interviewed Moses around year 16 of their 40 year wilderness wandering, I don't think they'd encounter a smug leader. I don't think he would have exuded a breezy confidence. I think they'd find a sometimes desperate man who nevertheless believed (most days, anyway) that somehow, God was leading them somewhere, and that some way, they would eventually find their way through that desperate chaos.And the followers of Jesus had no certainty. They were convinced until the very end that they were going to be the kings of a new revolution. They never accepted that their journey was going to end with Jesus dying on a cross. Their answers to his questions confounded Jesus, and he walked away wondering how they still didn't get it. Yet, they remained the ones in whom he placed his faith to start his church.What trips so many of us up is that we think we need to believe in all of it before we believe in any of it, and we just can't, so we give up and move on. If you can't believe a story about a man in the belly of a whale, or an ark that could hold all of those animals, or a good God that would drown everybody else except for a few people and those animals, then we can't believe any of it. And while I understand that, I just don't think that's a helpful way to start.Here's my suggestion: Start with what you can believe in, however small. If you're wondering where to start, my suggestion is that you start with Jesus (the man). Whatever else you believe about God or Jesus, it is generally agreed upon that a man was born in an obscure middle eastern city in the First Century, and despite the fact that he never traveled far, married, wrote anything down, or lived past 35, he remains the most talked about human being on planet earth. He started a movement that continues to this day, despite hundreds of years of unimaginable cruelty done in his name (Crusades, etc) that should have put an end to it.Start with an assumption: If it wasn't true about Jesus, it isn't true about God; and if it was true about Jesus, then it is true about God. If you believe what the bible says about Jesus (and I'm aware that not all readers of this blog do or will), then you believe that Jesus is the exact representation of God (Hebrews 1:3) and the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Now, I realize that raises 525,600 questions (including how can you believe that Jesus was the exact representation of God)?, but let those questions linger while you get to know Jesus, the one whose best friends included tax collectors and zealots (sworn enemies of each other), and who was despised by religious leaders but embraced by disgraced prostitutes and dying criminals. And I'm not saying "get to know Jesus" in a kind of smarmy, blue suit and big hair on T.V. kind of way, I'm saying it in an inquisitive, bring all your questions, all your doubt, all your uncertainty, all your unbelief kind of way. Jesus is the most talked about human being in human history. The bible claims that he's the picture of who God is. Just come and see. That's the invitation he gave to some of his earliest followers, so I am going to assume it's still a good invitation today.There is so much more to say, but I'm out of space and out of time. And I'm sorry, Maria, we'll have to leave the questions on heaven and the afterlife for another post.For those of you who would like to read more, I'd suggest Benefit of the Doubt by Greg Boyd, and/or Who is This Man? by John Ortberg. Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton should most certainly be on your list as well.Next Tuesday, we'll examine another delicious question. This Thursday I'll be back with a post I just couldn't not write. In it together, friends.Read all other posts in this series here.