This meme makes two points that grabbed my attention:
- God isn’t real
- People are afraid of reality.
I won’t bother with the first point; many websites explore the question of God’s reality (here are two from the perspective of Jesus of Nazareth, who many people believe is God’s Son: http://carm.org/ and http://www.ReasonableFaith.org), so I’ll leave it up to them.
As for the second point, my first reaction was to immediately think this: people believe in God because they are all TOO aware of the reality of their condition.
People who believe in God and follow Jesus usually know they don’t live anything close to an ideal life.
Take me, for example. I’m aware that I’m:
- Self-centred (and therefore don’t care enough about others)
- Greedy (Frank, you have 700 CDs; do you really need more??)
- Prone to hold grudges (which always hurts me, not the person who made me so angry)
- Usually looking for something in return whenever I’m generous (It took me awhile to figure out this is giving with my hand out).
These are just the faults I can immediately identify; I’m sure my very patient wife can suggest more.
However long the list is, here’s the truth: while I can make little improvements, I can never truly fix all my weaknesses. I don’t have the willpower, the discipline or the discernment. And I’ll be bold here and declare that YOU don’t have what it takes to fix all your faults, either. In fact, no one does.
That’s the absolute, unblinking reality of humanity’s condition.
So, if we can’t fix ourselves, who can? Let me be quite radical and declare that God, our creator, is up for the task. In fact, His prime business is repairing broken people. The Internet has many stories about how following Jesus has restored damaged people. (I touch on two of those stories in this blog: https://wp.me/p2wzRb-fz.)
If you’ve met serious Jesus followers, I’m sure you’ll know we’re not perfect. Which might lead you to wonder if I’m truthful about God fixing people who following His Son.
I am truthful, but all this is mixed in with the mystery of free will. The horrors of human history make it plain God has never wanted humanity to be a race of goose-stepping robots. This means He permits people — including Jesus followers— to resist His efforts to fix us.
But when we accept the gift of Jesus and believe that He died for all the wrong things we’ve done and the right things we’ve failed to do, then we welcome Him into our lives to start the repair work.
When will that work end? When this life is finished and we go to Heaven to spend eternity with Him. Until then, we serve as His ambassadors in a hurting world.
Does this make sense? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.
Frank's Cottage 