I was thinking…what is the reason that you (and I) believe in God?

Is it because of signs and wonder? Perhaps external evidence? Perhaps an experience, then?

I grew up with a belief in God, speaking to Him throughout my childhood. I understood very early that there was a God and that He was watching over us, perhaps, even judgmental at times, vengeful at others, and with a constant fear that I would die in my sleep. I feared him more than I believed in Him. It was not a godly fear, but one that grew from my childhood church attendance.

As my life progressed, I came to see God as a ‘goal’, a life that I would start living at some point down the road when i was ready, and good. Sometimes, I even waited on a sign or two to push me into the Church. After none materialized, I simply started seeing God as a distant figure, more in the deistic mold.

It was not until I hit rock bottom and my life started to get better that I found that I could feel the call of God. He seemingly was not there when I had hit rock bottom and was no where to be found in lifting me up from that bottomless pit. I had picked myself up by my boot straps and was getting up and on the move again. It was only then that I found myself turn to God.

I visited my great-uncle who counseled me to not forget God.

What!?!?!?!?! What had this God done for me?

I stopped into a Christian bookstore in Baker, Louisiana and bought a God Calling Journal. I soon found myself kneeling beside my bedside and asking for repentance, and through tears I finally believed in God. I did not need evidence or signs and wonders. I didn’t need a crisis – economic, health, or otherwise – to turn me to God. It wasn’t my time of physical need that brought me to God, but my spiritual decay that hit me in the face as I remember the Creator from the days of my youth.

I have stumbled along the way, but never did I every question God’s existence, nor dismiss Him as far off. In my life when I had strayed, I did not see God as judgmental or vengeful ready to send me to Hell, but as a loving Father that still called. I finally came home and never again do I intend to leave.

What is your reason for believing in God?

Just a late night thought…