“Ignorant” is actually the appropriate denotation – the definition of the idea that No One gave us all the things we have. That Nobody made all the things we see… But the word I prefer to use is, “Impossible” (Matthew 19:26.) When I look at the reward – the children – that God gave us to foster in the present darkness of our time, I know that only God could have given such unmerited gifts (SEE, Psalm 127:3.) Only God could have made these people. If I had been asked what I wanted them to look like and be like before they came, they would be a little less wonderful than God made them.

My son asked me yesterday: “Is it bad if I don’t believe there is a God?”

I was dead (Ephesians 2:1.) Grace gave me the opportunity to be alive. Sin (disbelieving God and the subsequent disobedience) severed my connection to God, who is the source of real life – spiritual life. When Adam believed the devil over God and then disobeyed God’s warning – that death would come from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – he fell from grace (SEE, Genesis 2:17.) All of creation fell with him, including me. But God had a plan for that; He has a plan for everything (Ephesians 3:1-10.)

His plan was to send the part of Him whose job it is to communicate wisdom with us. So, the Word (Jesus) came in a body like mine, because the Father in heaven wanted us to “see” Him (Romans 8:2-4; John 1:13-14.) God the Father wanted us to hear about how to be free from my former slave master, sin (John 14:7-9; John 12:49-50.)

It was the grace of love that brought Jesus to us, so that His sacrifice could pay the debt of unbelief and disobedience into which, the devil encouraged Adam to enter. The broken flesh of Jesus is the answer to the consequences of sin in fallen bodies – sickness, weakness, dying young. And the blood of Jesus is the way by which God forgives transgression (deciding to disobey) and sin (the act of disobedience.) The blood of Jesus washes us clean, so God no longer even remembers the sin that broke our bond with Him.

Jesus coming, suffering and dying on my behalf, before being resurrected and being witnessed alive, is the grace of God – the opportunity to be forgiven (healed, freed, and made alive.) But the way to accept God’s offering is faith (SEE, Ephesians 2:8.) My belief in the truth of the message preached about Jesus made me alive, gave me God the Holy Spirit to advise, teach, and comfort me, and made me a child of God (John 1:12; Romans 8:14; John 14:16, 26; I John 2:27.)

So, my son’s question was blow. A big blow with a big bat…

It was a gut punch, because: Not believing in God is more than bad. Without faith, we are still orphans, outside the refuge of the only One who truly loves us. God is the only One who loves us, knowingly: knowing how we’ve secretly blown it; knowing our bad habits; knowing our evil thoughts; knowing what we will do wrong, how we’ll blow it again, and that we’ll continue in some bad habits. Knowing all that, only God truly loves us and remains close. God is the only One who will never leave us, even when many or all others turn their backs (Matthew 28:20.)

This is why it’s so important for my son to know: Yes, there is a God. Everything good that you have was given to you by Him. Nature generates awe within us when we can quiet the distractions and absorb it. And everything science reveals and takes note of in its Journal of Discoveries was ordered and set in motion by the wisdom that He created (Proverbs 8: 22-23; SEE, Genesis 1-2.)

I think we all have to confront the question: Is God real? Is God good? Why am I here?

The itch inside to have answers to those questions is more than natural, but also spiritual. And there is no lasting joy or hope without knowing that the answers are: Yes (God is real.) and Yes (God is good.)

Amen.