How I came to believe in God

Instead of taking you through the scriptures and sharing what I've been learning like I normally do, I've decided to go ahead and write about why I believe what I believe, and how I got there. I feel like I need to write this because most of the blogs I write are about God and I want you all to understand why I write about Him so much and the reasons why God means so much to me. So I guess I'll just get to it.

As a child I grew up in quite the home. Like most families, we carry a lot of baggage. I'm going to spare you all most of my family details because my goal right now isn't to get into that. I think I'll start in my high school days and go from there. Throughout my life, relating to people has always been a struggle for me. At home, I never really spoke unless I was spoken to, so making new friends wasn't that easy. I love people, but I just don't know how to relate to them most times. I've struggled with loneliness for as long as I can remember. I think because of some past childhood experiences, I had shut down and never really recovered from that. So once high school started, I constantly felt like I was on my own. Most days, it wasn't so bad because I live in my head and my thoughts normally keep me occupied. I also read a lot of books to give me something to do. Now, I'm not saying I didn't have friends...there have always been people surrounding me. But call me generic or whatever, I've always felt like that person who feels alone in a crowded place. So eventually, I started seeking something more. At the start of freshmen year, I found drugs. The drugs brought me a whole new set of friends, as well as this sudden burst of confidence that made me feel like I could conquer the world. I started to hang out with people more, and become this whole new person. And I loved it. I felt like I had gained respect from people. As the years went on, I jumped further and further into the drugs and found myself using everyday, all day. I became very unhappy when I wasn't using and that made me use even more. Lets just say it got out of control. I also started to feel like I needed the drugs to eat, sleep, and basically function properly. The thoughts that once comforted me, started to really effect me negatively because the drugs altered them. Then around my junior year, the drugs suddenly weren't enough. I felt like I needed some real substance to my life and I started to feel like there was something else out there...something bigger than myself, but I couldn't pinpoint it. I just knew it was big. Eventually, I found philosophy...or rather philosophy found me.

Let's back up really fast to the lunchroom my sophomore year. At my old high school, teachers patrolled the lunchrooms to keep the peace and make sure students weren't being too rambunctious. One day, one of the teachers in the lunchroom overheard someone addressing me by the name "Giese" When he heard that he came and introduced himself. He told me he had my brother in his class a few years back. I learned that he was an English teacher and taught the class I had planned on taking. I also noticed the way he interacted with students. He seemed to genuinely care about people and love them. I have always been drawn to those kind of people, so that confirmed my decision to take his class. I don't remember too much about that class, but I really liked the teacher and decided to take the philosophy class he also taught. I had no clue that class would change my life. Philosophy was exactly what I was looking for. It was deep and made me want to study more and more of it. I even studied it on my own time and eventually got to a point that I could hold my own in a debate. Not only that, because a lot of philosophy is about explaining who we are and how we came to be, I was able to relate it to other subjects...especially Science. Our teacher loved to bash science, so one day we got into a discussion about the Big Bang Theory. We talked about it's faults in explaining creationism to us and the question was posed, "What put those two atoms into motion?" That question blew my mind. Science can't explain how those two atoms were able to collide. Simply put, the laws of science tell us there has to be an energy source for kinetic energy to even happen. Since science can't tell me how that happened to make it possible for those atoms to move, I took it upon myself to find out why. I HAD to know why. I came to the conclusion that something bigger had to make that happen. 

As I started to study more, I began asking my teacher questions about God. I found out he sponsored a bible study every Friday morning that was lead by Young Life and he invited me to come check it out. (For the record, I am really thankful that he was willing to discuss God with me because the law says teachers can't really talk about God with students.) Now, I have grown up in the church my entire life so I was already pretty familiar with the bible. I just never really took it, or religion and God to seriously. But now I had a reason too...I HAD to find out the truth and why science couldn't tell me how I got here even though it claims be to able to prove basically everything. My teacher invited me to the church he goes to and I went...once. The group of friends I had weren't interested in God, and lets be honest I wasn't either. I just wanted to know how I got here and WHY I was here. I was also still way more interested in drugs than being religious. I was under the impression you couldn't have drugs and religion, so I chose drugs instead. Because of that choice, I distanced myself from the church and just studied on my own time. I still went to the bible study every Friday morning, and even some other bible studies, but just to ask questions and challenge people. Even though I wasn't really interested in the religion, I was learning a great deal and it was very interesting and made me want to study more. To not make this too long, I will try and sum up what I learned as the years have passed since that first philosophy class.

As I thought about it a lot, I came to the conclusion that if science couldn't tell me how I got here, then something bigger had to exist. I was determined to find out what, and through my studies, the bible seemed to hold the most logical answer. It explained that God created us, and he did it out of love. As I thought about that more it made complete sense. Sorry if this next part is hard to follow, but it makes perfect sense to me, and I hope it does to you as well. Every human being is able to feel love...and does. If every one of us is able to feel love, then love has to be significant. And since love is not a tangible thing, there is no possible way science would even be able to touch that. So if love didn't come from the earth, then something had to "create" love. Love would also not exist if we didn't exist, because love is unique to our species. You could argue that animals feel love like we do, but animals also kill their young to survive and would leave another one of the same species in a heartbeat if in danger. Humans don't do that. Since no one can explain how "love" came to be, then something else must be able to. Another thing that struck me about science is that it can't explain how life started. Again, if you can't explain how the Big Bang Theory started, then you certainly can't tell me you know how we came to be. Most of us are aware that the body itself is just flesh, organs, and the rest of what goes in there. But none of what's in the body can explain how that happened in the first place. But the bible sure can. And I believe the bible can because the earth exists. If that blasted theory can't explain logically how the earth came to be, then something bigger must have created it. Now, if something bigger created the earth, then it would definitely be possible for that same something to create something as complex as the human body. And since I do believe that it was God that created the body and human life, I also believe that this being can do ANYTHING. So fast forward to Jesus' time. Assuming everything I just said above is correct, then wouldn't it be possible for God to come down in human form? I mean, he did create us after all. So if it is possible for Him to come down in human form, then is it not also possible for Him to die and then come back from the dead?? I think it is. If that's possible, then why wouldn't God be able to come inside of us in a different form...the Holy Spirit. I think this is important because every person at one time or another has thought about something bigger than themselves existing. Religion was there before Jesus' came, so that means even back then people were searching for an answer. I feel like the fact that a man came down, died, and then rose again...and had witnesses, would be total proof of God himself existing. And the fact that more than one religious book speaks about Jesus and the miracles he preformed...miracles that science can't explain, is added proof of his validity as our creator. And the unique thing about Christianity is that we don't have to DO anything to gain the love of our creator...we just have to accept he created us and died in human form for us and our sin. Which brings me back to love. Love ties everything together, because God created us out of love, gave us the ability to love, died to prove ultimately love exists, and then gave us that love back in the form of the Holy Spirit so we can experience it today, even after the death of Jesus Christ. Even if your not a Christian, you still exist somehow. If all that happened, which I believe it did because we are here today, then I also think it is possible to live and be able to rely on my creator. The fact that I am alive is proof to me that God exists. And again sorry to repeat myself, but if I exist then that means that God must have created me...which means he created you, and everything else that we experience. And since I can't deny that I exist, then God must. If he exists then he also made it possible to feel and think and do everything else we humans can do. And since we live on the earth that must mean he created that to because we breath the air and live on such a complex planet that allows us to sustain life. And again, because the Big Bang Theory can't explain how that came to be, then Gd must have done that too. Pretty cool, huh?

Because of all of that I think that it is important to live and love for my creator. Why would I not...I mean He is the one that allows me to be here and love in the first place. And because when a loved one dies the only thing that is left here on Earth for us is the memories and the love we still hold for that person, I think loving others is important. Realistically, even if you live your life as a loving person but never accepted God as your savior and creator, you still lived and loved which means without knowing it, you accepted that God exists because love does. The cool thing about God is that he gives EVERYONE a chance to love him...even after death!! So I guess there you have it. This is why I believe what I do and how I got there.

Since then I have gotten rid of the drug use in my life and have fully devoted my life to living for the God that created me! The road is not easy, but then again life isn't supposed to be easy. Living for God gives me purpose though and I think that counts for something.