“From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17:26-28a, NRSVUE)
Continuing my Storyworth project, here’s how I answered, “Do you believe in a higher power?”
Yes, and here’s how that has worked for me:
My primary experience of God has been through nature, marriage, fatherhood, and music. Regarding the natural world, I agree with C.S. Lewis, who said:
If we used [nature] as our only clue [to the existence of God or a higher power], then I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place).[1]
For me, nature points to a Maker, the Great Artist, but it’s the beauty of human love, seen especially in a healthy family, that points to a loving Creator. There, we see beauty in the emotional and sexual union within marriage, and experience deep trust and interdependency between spouses, parents, and children. Interestingly, even when we don’t see these things and experience brokenness in our relationships with our parents, spouse, or children, we retain an awareness of what things could be or should be.
Fatherhood especially has provided me with powerful evidence of a loving Creator who, in Christianity, reveals Himself as “Our Father.” I remember traveling back down south to our home at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1993. Our family was returning from a week of visiting our extended families back in southern New Jersey. We stopped for dinner, and I was sitting across from my oldest son, Matthew Gregory, at McDonald’s. At the time, he was two years old, and I had just settled him on the orange plastic bench he was using as a jungle gym. As I helped him get more fries, he looked up, full of wonder and dependence, and said, “I love you, Daddy.” It was the first time I had ever heard those words from him. My soul leapt, my heart smiled, and I immediately went over to the other side of the bench and, with tears, embraced him and said, “I love you too, bud.”
Priceless experiences like this, as well as almost forty years of intimacy with my wife, Pam, and now being a grandfather, have become indelible reasons of the heart—real evidences at the core of my being—for the existence of a loving creator who has not left us without answers to our most challenging questions:
- Origin: Where did we come from?
- Meaning: What are we here for?
- Morality: What is good and what is evil?
- Destiny: Is there an afterlife and, if so, what will it be like?
The question becomes, then, where did a loving God give us answers to the questions above? And this is where, if I’m an honest broker, it gets complicated. Many based on geography and other influences have gone toward one of the world’s five major religions to answer these questions. For me, it’s been the compelling evidence for the resurrection of Christ that has caused me to embrace Christianity and to ultimately become a minister of the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
But although a reasonable faith has always been important to me, I’ve not relied on my intellect alone in searching for God. Working as a carpenter has taught me well the truth of one of Clint Eastwood’s most famous lines: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” That is, our profound limitations drive us to seek answers or help outside ourselves. Or to say it differently, the idea that humans can figure things out without any help from a higher power or God is sheer folly.
Thomas Merton’s prayer captures my heart well:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.[2]
Although many will desire more exclusive content about Christ, Merton’s prayer is honest about our limitations, capacity for self-deception, and need to throw ourselves wholly on the mercy of God. Even though I’ve done my fair share of studying about God and religion, it’s honestly an unseen hand that’s led me to a place of serenity and seeing Christianity and the Bible as God’s answers to the questions that trouble us most. But what ultimately leads a person to see Jesus as the only way to God, and the Bible as God’s Word? These are great questions that I don’t have the answers to; indeed, I have observed even within my own faith tradition that each person’s journey to Christ is different. In other words, there may be many roads to Jesus, even if there is only one way to God. And, again, as a Christian minister, I’ve come to see the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ—the center of Christianity— as further evidence of a loving God, and the gateway to knowledge of and a right relationship with God.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone,1996), 37.
[2]Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master, (Paulist: Mahwah), 243.