Does God exist? Who is God and what is God like? What is the truthfulness of the Christian story and what role should it play in my life? Surely you've encountered some variation of these questions along your way. Perhaps they're intriguing, perhaps they seem pointless, or perhaps you've built your life around them. I'm convinced the answers to these questions are of the utmost importance and form the foundation of all meaning, value, and purpose. And I believe it is incumbent upon us to engage with them for the duration of our lives.
My Christian faith journey has been far from easy or pretty and I suspect that's the case for most, if not all, sincere believers. But why shouldn't it be challenging? Life is complicated and messy. It's full of highs and lows, joys and sorrows. What good things come without a battle? Is marriage full of nothing but bliss, or does it require endless pursuit, compromise, and devotion? Is it easy to raise a child, or does it stretch us to our limits, requiring unconditional love, sacrifice, and endurance? Can we master a skill or profession with little effort, or does it take years of hard work, labor, and determination? The most important things in life are difficult and must be fought for, and I think our relationship with God takes on a similar format. While I don't wish to relegate God's ways to the same patterns of the world, I do think we can learn from them, and what I believe is this: Our relationship with God requires our deepest devotion and most earnest pursuit.
My Christian faith journey has been far from easy or pretty and I suspect that's the case for most, if not all, sincere believers. But why shouldn't it be challenging? Life is complicated and messy. It's full of highs and lows, joys and sorrows. What good things come without a battle? Is marriage full of nothing but bliss, or does it require endless pursuit, compromise, and devotion? Is it easy to raise a child, or does it stretch us to our limits, requiring unconditional love, sacrifice, and endurance? Can we master a skill or profession with little effort, or does it take years of hard work, labor, and determination? The most important things in life are difficult and must be fought for, and I think our relationship with God takes on a similar format. While I don't wish to relegate God's ways to the same patterns of the world, I do think we can learn from them, and what I believe is this: Our relationship with God requires our deepest devotion and most earnest pursuit.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. - Nicene Creed (partial)
At the heart of the Christian story is Jesus. He's the man who is the coming together of divinity and humanity. He's Immanuel, or 'God with us,' and in his person is the fullness of God. He's the alpha and omega, he's the beginning and the end, and he exists from everlasting to everlasting. And his invitation is for all of us. Regardless of who we are or where we're from, no matter our past, Jesus invites us all into a relationship. But the relationship he desires with us is like no other. He tells us that we must abandon our own ways and follow him instead. He tells us that he is to be the focal point of our lives and that we should love him with the entirety of our being; that is, with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And he tells us that we must lose ourselves for his sake. Jesus asks for our full investment and highest loyalty. And the reason? Because God is the supreme good.
God is the non-contingent ground of the contingent universe, the reason there is something rather than nothing, the ultimate explanation for why the world should exist at all. Accordingly, he is not a being, but rather, as Thomas Aquinas put it, ipsum esse subsistens, the sheer act of to be itself. - Bishop Robert Barron, Why I Love My Invisible Friend
God is the one who simply is; he's the one from which all exists and the one for which all exists. God's very nature is love, and it is out of his love that he created and sustains the Universe. Out of God flows all goodness and beauty, and it is from this wellspring that the human heart is intended to drink. It is in God that humanity is to find its meaning and purpose, its very reason for being. But humanity often goes its own way. We choose to define what is right and wrong; who is valuable and who isn't. We tell ourselves that it's up to us to define our own meaning and purpose and we're often in pursuit of our own power and glory. We choose to worship the contingent and temporary things of this world—things that come and go, appear and disappear—rather than the unconditioned Creator of the world. And what happens when we go our own way? What happens when we don't drink from the wellspring of God? We end up with a world that's in a mess, to put it mildly. But thankfully, it is in this mess that Jesus meets us. In Jesus, God has launched a rescue mission. He's entered our world, taking on flesh and bones, in an effort to reconcile us to himself and to his ways; in an effort to reveal himself to us, to redeem us from our past, and to show us the way forward. No matter our situation, regardless of how far we think we are from him, God is near—his love, mercy, and patience are endless. And with an outstretched hand, Jesus, the Son of God, invites us all to embrace a new way: God's way. He invites us to take part in something new, a world he's making, a world that will be without end. Jesus offers to make us anew and reshape us into his image. He offers to rewire us from the ground up, changing our hearts so that our first and last instinct is to love. And he calls us to follow him into a weary and broken world.
Whether you're a devoted believer or a convinced skeptic, the challenge to us all is this: Let us pursue God and allow him to show us the way forward. Let us pursue him, day after day, making him our first, last, and everything in between. I leave you with a prayer:
"God, the creator of all that is, here I am; show me how to pursue you. Show me the truth of the Christian story, and reshape me into the person you desire me to be. Draw me into your love and show me your ways."