Why Should I Believe In God?

Why should I believe in God is a valid question and an honest place to start exploring. In this article, I'll try to explain why I believe in God and why you should also, but make no mistake about it; this is not an argument for His existence. Why? The answer is simple; God doesn't need me to defend Him.

This concept became clear one Saturday morning as I watched my son play basketball with a few boys before their game started. One boy, in particular, was at least a foot taller than the others, including my son. As the boy towered over and taunted the other players with the ball in hand, he laid down a challenge. "I'll take on all of you plus your dad sitting over there," he said, referring to me.

My 10-year-old son barked back at his challenge without missing a beat, saying, "My dad played basketball his whole life, and he'll beat you no problem by himself." Then he ran full speed to get me.

He wanted me to show the arrogant kid how much stronger and better at basketball I was. I laughed it off and told my son I couldn't possibly play a 10-year-old kid; there was no point. I'm not great anymore at my age, but two feet taller and over a hundred pounds heavier than the challenger wasn't much of a challenge worth standing up for. Not even remotely.

That's when it sank in with me. I don't need to defend God. He is way bigger and stronger than any challenges I could possibly face. He doesn't need me to argue with anyone for Him. There are no challenges for God. He lives outside of space and time as we know it.

I also realized that God created us in His image, and we're all God's children. My son wanted me to jump in and prove him right, but I didn't because I didn't have to. I can imagine it's the same way God feels when we want Him to do something just because we asked or demanded. His existence does not have to be proven; it needs to be experienced.

I can, however, share why I believe in God and why I hope you find your way to Him as well.

‍

Five fact-based reasons I believe in God:

• The Bible: People have been trying to prove the Bible to be inaccurate or false for thousands of years. The kicker is they can't. The Bible has thousands of articles of proof showing it to be accurate. Everything from ancient artifacts, scrolls, and remnants of Biblical structures. To put it in perspective, most people believe that Aristotle existed what he said and wrote was accurate, but we have less than 50 pieces of proof that what he said was accurate. The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, with around 25 million copies sold each year. If it was going to be proven wrong, it would have already been done. Most of the people who want to prove it wrong or inaccurate typically have a few things in common, they've never read it, and they've never done their own thorough research. There is way too much proof to list here, but you get the idea. If not, start searching for yourself.

• The Resurrection of Jesus: If someone could disprove the resurrection of Jesus, Christianity would collapse. It's been over two thousand years, and it still can't be disproven. There were over 500 witnesses of the crucifixion and resurrection. These weren't all followers of Christ either. This group was made up of His enemies also.

• B.C. & A.D.: What do these mean exactly when we say it's 2023 A.D.? A.D. stands for Anno Domini, which means "in the year of our Lord," and B.C. stands for "Before Christ." Our history is divided in two by this line in the sand when time essentially stopped and started again. Let's argue and say the Bible is make-believe, and we're not sure Jesus ever lived. Even if that is our stance, what could possibly cause an entire civilization to smash the rest button and stop time as they knew it? Then redefine it, starting with "in the year of our Lord?" Have you ever thought about that for a minute? What kind of event would it take for us right now to stop counting years as we know them and then label the coming years differently? How can Jesus not have walked the earth?

• The Complexity of the Human Body: Let's start with the trillions of cells that compose our body, containing about 3 billion base pairs of DNA each. I'm not a math guy, but that's a lot of perfectly synced tiny particles that make it possible for us to live and breathe. Could it be a coincidence? Let me put it in a different scenario. You're walking down the street, and you see two pens standing on end and leaning together, touching points in the middle. Picture an upside-down V. Would you think someone placed them there, or was it a random coincidence? Maybe on a crazy stretch of the imagination, they fell out of a car window and landed like that. I can loosely see that possibility. Now imagine if 3 billion pairs of pens were standing on end and lining the street for as far as you could possibly see. I would conclude that those pens were put there intentionally by something or someone and not a random act of nature. Setting those up would take forever, and where is someone going to get that many pens anyway? Our bodies are far too intricate to be put together by random chance.

• The Main Fact: The main fact is all the evidence points to the existence of God, and this section could go on forever. I challenge you to look for yourself, though. Do your own research, and you just might shed some light on why you've always been searching for something.

‍

These are some of my personal experiences which prove to me God is real:

Surviving a Brutal Car Wreck:

When my daughter was about six months old, I worked in construction. I guess the combination of working out in the Texas heat and sleepless nights finally caught up with me. I was on my way to work at a job site in the country early one morning and fell asleep at the wheel just before a sharp S-curve. My vehicle at the time was a single-cab F-150, and at that stage in my life, I never wore seatbelts.

I remember driving down the road, and the next thing I knew, I was wandering around a field barefoot, looking for my cell phone. I worked for a family business and had to tell them I wouldn't make it in. That's when a guy with a flashlight came running towards me, telling me to take a seat. He was a security guard for the church whose property I had wrecked on. As he called an ambulance, I saw my truck's tail lights off in the field, where it came to a stop by hitting a tree. The toolbox bolted to the bed was lying open against another tree in the opposite direction.

When the paramedics arrived, I didn't want to go with them. I thought I was fine. One began pushing on my midsection, and I doubled over in pain. It turns out I had some bruised ribs. I later learned that the roof of my truck was smashed down past the steering wheel from rolling end over end repeatedly. My bruised ribs were a result of hitting the half-rolled-down window as I flew out while it flipped.

I wouldn't have walked away from the wreck if I had been wearing my seatbelt. The paramedics told me they had never seen a rollover accident, let alone one that bad, where the driver walked away without severe life-threatening injuries. I truly believe it was a miracle I was saved that day, and my life has a greater purpose than just going through the motions. I should also mention the property I crashed on was that of a massive church here in Texas.

‍

Boots or Burgers:

Fast forward a few years down the road. I was still in construction, and my wife was in college and working part-time. We were young and didn't have much money. Between a baby, her college, and bills, we were barely scraping by. I had saved up 150 dollars cash to buy work boots and decided we needed a date just as bad as I needed the boots.

It was a Saturday around noon, and we drove to my wife's grandma's house so she could watch our daughter while we went on our date. As we pulled into the driveway, I noticed a man digging in a neighbor's trash can on the street. Watching him pull a half loaf of bread from the garbage, I felt a push like I had never felt before. Looking back, I know it was my spirit moving me to help, but I didn't know why at the time.

As we got out of the car, I told my wife I had to go talk to the guy. I didn't know why, but I knew I had to. As she walked into the house, I walked across the street. He looked up at me, bread in hand. As he did, I could see the pain in his eyes. I asked if he was hungry, and he replied by simply shaking his head. I pulled the 100 dollar bill from my wallet and handed it to him. With tears welling up in his eyes, he said, "God bless you," and walked away.

As we drove to the mall, I told my wife what happened, even though I couldn't explain why. We still had $50 for lunch, which mattered more to me.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the lunch crowd was out in full force. It was going to be an hour's wait, or we could sit at the bar, so we chose the bar. I don't remember what my wife got, but I ordered one of those appetizer samplers. Halfway through, the gentleman beside me asked if it was any good. We talked briefly about which ones I liked, but I don't remember the specifics. Shortly after, the guy and his wife finished their meal and left while my wife and I were still taking our sweet time.

When we were finally ready to head down the road, I asked for the bill. To our surprise, the couple next to us had paid for our lunch. She handed me the receipt with a Bible verse the man had written on it. I don't remember the verse, although I wish I could.

I ended up finding a pair of work boots under $50 bucks before heading home.

This, to me, isn't karma, luck, or random coincidence. God works in multiplication. Who knows what the homeless man did with the money, but that part is irrelevant. Because I followed the prompting of my spirit, God made sure we had our date, and I got my work boots.

‍

Perfectly Timed Job Offer or Divine Intervention:

I was baptized sometime around my mid-twenties, and at some point afterward, we stopped making it a priority to attend church. Fast forward 7-8 years later, I was running my own business, and things were going great until they weren't. We decided to find a new church to call home, and after a few weeks of searching, we found it. We hadn't been attending the new church even a month, I would bet, before bills started piling up on the kitchen table.

Feast or famine is a phrase used in construction, and it pretty much holds true. We had hit the famine, and I don't remember exactly why. I think it was a combination of rising wages, checks coming in slow for work already done, and things of that nature. I was fried. One evening I sat at the kitchen table writing checks to pay all the employees first, as I always had. After doing so, the number left over was nowhere near what we needed to cover our bills that were stacked in front of me.

I broke down. It was the first time my wife had ever seen me cry, and we had been together since we were seventeen. Since we had returned to church, I thought I would give prayer a try. I prayed for things to turn around even though I didn't know what that looked like, but I prayed hard.

The next week I picked up a remodel job on a good size home. At first, it didn't seem like anything special. Within the first couple of weeks, I realized this job would be different, and I would make decent money. A material supply company I bought from over the years occasionally mentioned that they might hire me for sales someday. Nothing had ever come of it. At least not yet, anyway.

I was guessing after my remodel job, I would have at least a little cushion to fall back on if I decided to shut my business down. It gave me the courage to walk into that supply company and tell the guy I always spoke with it was now or never. I said I was shutting it down, and if they wanted to hire me, it was time. If not, I would find something else to do, but I was ready for a change.

Within a few days, I was sitting down with the founders of the company and offered a job. I've been with them since October 2014, and they have all become like family.

And the remodel? It paid out more profit in thirty days than any other job my company had ever done. It was enough to pay off all our debt, including my wife's car!

Even though I hadn't been faithful in prayer and attending church for years, God was still faithful to me. Prayer does work.

Now for the reasons YOU should believe in God. After all, that's how you found this article in the first place, right?

• What are you searching for? Ever feel that emptiness, but no matter what you try to fill it with, it's still there? We're wired to seek out God. No amount of alcohol, drugs, money, or love will fill that void in your life. Has anything worked yet?

• What would you stand to lose by believing in God? Truthfully, what? You'll lose some party friends who aren't really friends and don't have your best interests at heart. That's not really a loss, though.

• If you believe in God and you're right, you go to heaven. If you believe in God and He doesn't exist, you lose nothing. But If you don't believe in God and He is real, you won't go to heaven, and I don't think you want to risk it.

• Sometimes, Christians don't act like they should. That's a fact, and it's because we're all imperfect humans trying to make it in an imperfect world. Have you stopped eating out because once or twice a waiter made you mad? Not liking certain people isn't an excuse for not loving God. (Although we should love everyone no matter what. Just saying....)

• Good people don't go to heaven. Saved people do. You may say you live your life in a caring, compassionate, and giving way, so you're covered. I wish you were, but that's not quite how it works.

Most people want to know what's in it for them. What do they gain by believing in God?

My response to someone asking what I've gained from believing in God is simple. Sometimes gaining has nothing to do with it. For me, it's more about what I've lost. I lost my ego, my pride, and my insecurities. I also lost my anger, my jealousy, and my fear of death. I lost the people in my life who didn't really care about me. Have I gained by believing in God? Absolutely, and I've also lost a lot along the way. That's the funny way God works. Whether I was gaining or losing, both were in my favor.

What about how science proves some of the events in the Bible couldn't have happened? It's just not physically possible.

They would be correct. It's not scientifically possible for a man to survive in the belly of a whale or for water to pour from a rock. Science also says once you're dead, you're dead. Walk on water? Also, a no in the scientific playbook.

Where am I going with this?

God is not limited by science; if he were, he wouldn't be God. That's the whole point. Our God is the supernatural creator of the universe, not bound by our limited knowledge of science.

How to find out if God is real yourself:

You'll never know for yourself unless you seek Him out. The steps are pretty simple. First, you pray to receive God in your heart as your Lord and Savior. Next comes water baptism, followed by getting plugged in with like-minded Christians. We're made to do life together. Are you ready for your new life to begin? If so, read the following prayer aloud:

God, I'm tired of doing life on my own. Today I'm choosing to turn from my sinful ways. I declare that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. That He died on the cross and rose from the dead to wash my sins away. Please come into my heart Lord, forgive my sins, and fill me with your Holy Spirit. Thank you, Jesus, for just now coming into my life and giving me everlasting life in Your Kingdom. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

Congratulations! You just took your first step in trusting Christ with your new life. The next step is to be water baptized. If you don't have a church to call home, it's time to find one. Odds are, the first one you find won't be a fit. Hopefully it is, but if not, take some time and find one you feel at home in.