Better is One Day: Thoughts on Faith, Doubt, and Life

"How lovely is your dwelling place, oh Lord Almighty. 

For my soul longs and even faints for you. 

For here my heart is satisfied within your presence. 

I sing beneath the shadow of your wings.

Better is one day in your courts.

Better is one day in your house.

Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere."

"Better Is One Day"- (sung by Chris Tomlin) taken from Psalm 84

As a kid I was always comfortable believing in God because that was what my parents taught me to believe. 

Once I got older I learned there were others who didn't share my belief in God. 

Some people thought I was wrong or foolish for believing he existed.

 I started to have doubts. 

Doubting whether God existed or whether we are all just heartless matter wandering around with no real purpose and no true design. Just a well constructed mess of atoms that seem to have come together for no apparent cause. Appearing to be filled with intelligence that must have come from somewhere, maybe from unintelligent non personal or emotional matter? Appearing to be designed perfectly and placed in just the perfect spot in our universe, 

but really having no purpose at all...

Yeah the idea of God sounds good, but why would it be true? 

It almost seemed too good to be true. 

I can agree with the writer of Psalms 42:2 When he says,

  "My soul thirsts for God. For the living God." 

I desperately am in need of God. Without him life seems so confusing and purposeless. 

The good thing is that trusting in him and the reality of him isn't really that far fetched. No matter what anyone says, belief in God is not crazy. Many if not all scientific discoveries that are legit and proven can be explained by what the bible says. There are a set of facts that we have come to know about the earth. The facts can either lead you down the path of faith in the God who created everything, or it can lead you down a path that attempts to explain everything with a scientific explanation. Both paths cannot be proven necessarily, because we can't go back in time to the beginning. 

However, the bible says "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled"(Matt. 5:6), and that "God rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6)." 

Point being, if you feel the need to seek God out, you can and will find him. 

He may have been drawing you to himself for a long time and you didn't even realize it.

For me, I can feel the reality of God when I am faced with my utter and desperate need.

 I am so in need of so many things to make my little heart whole. Nothing in this world can fill me and make me feel complete. However, if you follow the story line of the Bible, it says we were created to have an intimate and sustaining relationship with our creator. Once that relationship was broken by sin and rebellion we fell from it and now live a life that is less than what we were created for. The needs that we feel for relationship and purpose can all be achieved in a relationship with God.

Sometimes I find myself battling with doubt. I think to myself,

"This all seems to good to be true!

 To think that God made me and loved me enough to seek me out and find me. 

To come to this earth to die for me, to make me clean and renewed and give me real life.

 It seems outrageous!"

 But that is just the reality of God. 

He is outrageous.

 His love and mercy, his peace and power. All of him is so beyond our comprehension. We can't see him, but we can know him through the visible image of himself that he gave us, Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us. Come to show us the way the truth and the life. 

I need a way to walk. I need to know the truth. I need a real life. Not a life that is filled with striving for happiness and guilt from my own foolish mistakes. Not a life that is filled with purposelessness and aimelss wandering. I need the life that God gives us through Jesus Christ's death on the cross. 

His death on the cross was meant to wash away our sins and make us clean. When we accept the forgiveness for all of our sins past present and future we are made right with God and are brought into his family. God's spirit comes to take up residence inside of us. Giving us new life and eternal life after death. 

Now the Christian life is a life lived by faith. 

We walk by faith and not by sight (2nd Corinth. 5:7).

 Without faith you can't please God (Hebrews 11:6).
He is spirit (John 4:24) and no one has ever seen him (John 1:18).
 But we have seen the visible image of the invisible God in Jesus Christ(Col. 1:15) . 

He was a real person who walked on the earth, performed documented miracles, and was crucified for claiming to be God. 

He invited to people to come to him if they were thirsty, and receive the water that will fill them permanently, so their souls could finally drink from the fountain they were created to drink from. 

There is much historical evidence for Jesus's existence. In fact, hardly any scholars today doubt that he was a real man who walked this earth and was crucified. and that the Bible gives an accurate portrayal of what happened in his life and death.

God raised him from death to prove he was who he said he was, and this was the beginning of Christianity. 

The name Jesus is a well known name. Our dating system is based around his birth. There is something to him, to the Bible, and to the truth that God created us.
 There are numerous scientific and historic findings that prove the bible's accuracy and historicity. 

The best part of all of this is that if you put your faith in God, you WILL NOT be let down.
Sure you may have to walk through a few trials, but his promises of his presence and peace don't ever fail.
 I've been trusting the Lord for pretty much my whole life. Over the past seven years I've walked through some pretty heavy stuff.
There were times when I just wanted to die from the pain I was in and I never thought things would ever look up.
But if you hold on to the promises of God, that he will help you, be with you, and save you. He truly will.

It is an amazing thing that God actually proves his own existence by how well he keeps his promises.
If you are curious about him, put your faith in God through a relationship with Jesus. If you're not sure how, you can ask me or any other person you think may know Jesus. You can also download the Bible App on your smartphone and get an easy to read translation of the Bible like the "New Living Translation". Read through the accounts of Jesus' life in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the rest of the books that follow. This is a good starting point for someone who wants to explore Christianity.

 I'm still waiting on God to not come through,
not take care of me,
or not provide for me,
and it hasn't happened yet.

These are the moments when doubt is replaced
by the certainty that my God is real and true
 because he did and does
what he said he would do.

It's crazy but true.