On Believing in God and How I Almost Didn’t

I have this friend who has impacted my life more than he knows. I’ve never bothered telling him. It’s an awkward subject. He used to be a Christian and he’s really smart and very analytical and somewhere along the way, He stopped believing in God. He slowly shed his faith and I haven’t ever really talked to him about it personally, mostly out of fear. Though, someday, there’s some things I’d love to ask him.

But, anyways, as he was shedding his faith, I started questioning mine. Honestly, it shook me and I had no idea how much until a few years later, I still found myself wondering about God’s existence. But, I don’t think it had a negative impact–his influence on my life. I just thought it strange. That a person I don’t really know all that well, it’s not like we were the best of friends, could move in a direction with their thoughts and beliefs that could so greatly impact the course of mine.

So,  yeah, I decided to go back to the basics. But, when you’ve been raised in church most of your life, you have this heap of ideas and information about God and the world and it’s hard to strip it down to the bare necessities. But, I tried, somehow, emotionally and mentally. I didn’t want to stop believing, but I was also afraid of believing all the wrong things. I mean, I wanted to know the truth. I only have this one life, seems like I ought to find out what the truth is and believe that.

So, I just began asking myself, “Is there a God? ” “Could this be a possibility?” Everyday, I’d ask this and I’d look around to see. With new eyes and an open heart, I’d try to see. But, it’s not like I ever stopped believing because I would talk to Him all the while. Like, “God, if You’re real, and I do still believe You are but I just have to ask, if You’re real, would you help me to see?” And I never stopped reading my Bible because I wanted to find out what God is really like. So, I stripped down to the basics, but I couldn’t quit talking to Him and I wouldn’t stop reading His Word.

And since then, I’ve been on this quest, so to speak, to find God. To find Him in all my daily hum-drum life. Because folks, if God is real and if He actually made me and all this I see, then He must be the biggest thing. As in, the evidence of Him shouldn’t be that hard to see. And the thing is, I do see.  First, I go looking for Him, next thing I know, the Reality of Him is seeping into me.

And it’s not like I can sit down with these hard facts and try to prove His existence to anyone. It’s not like that at all. It’s more like a testifying to something I’ve seen. A Someone who is there, who doesn’t hide Himself from me. A Creator of the Universe who makes Himself known because He wants to be found. And once these eyes have seen, I can’t help but give witness.

So, I tell it. Because daily I look for Him and daily I see.

Now, some say seeing is believing. And some say you have to believe if you want to see.
But, as far as my life goes,  I think it takes both.

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