I’m not sure if such persons are managing to look at the full picture, or just choosing to magnify the thorns while ignoring the roses.

When natural disasters strike, there is widespread homelessness, hunger and fatality. The question that boggles the righteous mind is, ‘if there is a god, why?’

But, amidst the ashes, surface an outpouring of human kindness. Donations, contributions, volunteers; basically, help which symbolize the love and spirit that human beings are capable of.

When someone does you wrong, there is anger, hatred, and perhaps thirst for vengeance. But these are later accompanied by forgiveness and reconciliation.

Things in life often do not go the way we want. Failures in school, relationships, work, etc, are commonplace. You could even say we are professional failures.

But with setbacks come the opportunities for growth, improvement, and learning. Each time you become a better or stronger person, it is most likely because something had gone awry in your life, and you learnt to deal with it, and highly unlikely because nothing had happened.

For every bad, there is plenty of good, be it hidden or explicit but just ignored. This doesn’t seem like a godless world to me; that kind of world would just be filled with bad, bad, bad.

Can you even imagine how vile such a place would be? I can’t.

Before you claim godlessness, think again.

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It is not about attaining salvation, or earning a route to the Kingdom of Heaven, or being granted eternal life.

It is about learning about and better understanding the creative Mind and the loving Heart which made me, the entire awesome universe, and everything in it.

It is about learning to live with, understand, and love my fellow human beings.

It is about learning to appreciate and admire Nature and the beautiful wildlife on Earth, our fellow heirs to this planet.

It is about learning to attract the abundance which he wills in our lives, and then learning to share it with others.

It is about learning to Trust in God and surrender to him.

It is about learning what I was sent here to do, and then setting out to do it.

Importantly, it is about growth. It is about learning to be a better person, growing towards God.

With all those, comes salvation.

It’s not that I think I already “deserve” salvation, or that I have already “earned” it.

Not at all.

But I truly and firmly believe that God saves in his own time, and in his own way, and not at all in the manner put forth by human doctrines.

Doctrines which are governed by fear (fear-based theology - “if you don’t do this, you are going to hell”) and desire (rewards-based theology - “if you do this, heaven is yours”).

The best word to sum it all up, perhaps, is Grace. A simple word, yet impossible for the finite human mind to grasp.

What is Grace? I can’t really explain. This is by far my favorite so far:

“There is nothing I can do to make God love me more. Neither is there anything I can do to make him love me less.”

It is highly probable that it is not God who ultimately judges, but we who judge ourselves.

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She is one of those people who goes to temples, worships her ancestors, burns incenses, and, in every sense of the phrase, seems like one of those who “prays to idols”.

She speaks dialect and does not know a word of English. Her children are Christians and have tried many times to bring her to Church, and to make her accept Christ, but to no avail. No way, was always her unerring response.

You could say she is a deny-er of Jesus Christ. She could say she doesn’t know God; she does not even believe in an Almighty God.

But she knows love.

Her husband died young, and she raised seven children all on her own. She provided for them to the best of her ability, making countless sacrifices over the years.

Now, she is taking care of grandchildren, too.

She loves to serve, and does her best for the customers of her little eatery.

She does her bit for charity, too. She doesn’t have much money, but she is always giving free food to people who need it.

In fundamental Christianity, where explicit acceptance of Jesus Christ is a requisite for salvation and eternal life, she is oh so destined for hell.

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She is not a member of Christianity. But she is Christian in every sense of the word. She is, in fact, more Christian than the majority of bible-spouting members of Christianity.

She never accepted Christ or God by tongue. But the spirit lives in her heart, and she lives the spirit in her actions and way of life.

She does not know Christ or God by name. But she knows and lives them by essence.

She is truly a child of God, and she truly belongs to God.

I believe she is closer and nearer to God than many members of God-believing religions.

If there is salvation, if there is a Kingdom of Heaven, I have absolutely no doubt that, regardless of her religious inclination, she will be there.

God believers who cannot see this, in my view, know God very shallowly indeed.

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Now take a look around us, and we will see that people like this little lady are everywhere, surrounding us in every corner of the world and every walk of life.

Their ability to love without organized guidance (scriptures, religious services, sermons, etc) and without expectance of reward (”do this and you will reach heaven”) is truly worth saluting, and definitely worth learning from.

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And people exclaim - I did so too - that this fact is surely a *clear* sign that God exists, because it is clear that our surroundings were made to help relax and calm us.

Sure, that does make a lot of sense. After all, why would God create red, fiery surroundings to keep us uptight, angry and aggressive?

Then, someone suggested: It is obviously that humans, whom he believes are randomly occurring creatures without a Creator or intelligent design process, had *evolved* to like the main colours which surround us.

Ahhh, I see.. This makes sense, too. So, those human beings who did prefer other colours - red, purple, yellow, whatever - would *not* have survived very well at all. They probably died off.

Same fact, yet two very different and opposing viewpoints or conclusions.

Does God exist? Many are utterly convinced he does. But many, too, are convinced he is but a figment of Man’s imagination.

Same objective reality; differing subjective perceptions.

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Or perhaps you do not believe in God.

In my view, human beings are all inherently subjective. We have our different backgrounds and upbringing. We have different families, friends, associates, colleagues. We speak different languages, and belong to different cultures and traditions. We face different pressures. We all have our vested interests. And of course we also have our genes, our genetic disposition.

All these factors contribute to the person that we are and will become.

Logically, objectively, rationally, there is no argument strong enough to either conclude that God exists, or that God does not exist. This, after centuries of discussion and debate between some of the smartest minds on this planet.

Therefore, 2 factors come into play: our subjective perception of objective facts, and our personal experiences of reality, which helps to shape our perception of things.

If a departmental store has 10 employees which provide excellent service, and 10 employees which provide atrocious service, does the store as a whole provide good or poor service?

If you are unlucky enough to turn up at the store every time the unfriendly employees are at work, then you would probably logically conclude that the store provides lousy service. The opposite would be true - friendly employees, conclusion is good service.

There are studies which clearly show that human beings usually already reach a conclusion about something (somehow..), and then we would deliberately pick out or spot the evidence which supports our point of view, while conveniently ignoring all other evidence.

And so it is with the God existence dilemma.

If one insists on looking where God apparently (I say apparently because God is supposed to be omniscient, i.e. present everywhere) doesn’t show up, of course God wouldn’t exist; one would then, naturally, be more inclined to be one of those who do not believe in God.

One who surrounds himself with images of God, words of God, people who believe in God, songs which speak of God, would naturally also be more inclined to be one those who do believe in God.

Being as objective as I possibly can be (of course, I had mentioned that all human beings are inherently subjective), I can see why some people believe in God; I can also see why some people do not believe in God.

The subject of God is such a fun one to read about, speak about, think about and write about. All the debate and uncertainty - that’s where the fun lies, isn’t it?

Does God exist? We’ll probably never know for sure, until the day we die.

But if he doesn’t, how will we know, then? Hmmm…

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Why doesn’t he reply to my prayers affirmatively? Doesn’t a loving parent give his or her child something when the child asks for it?

Actually, no.

You see, a parent usually sees a much bigger picture than a child.

Usually.

Would a parent allow a child to put the tiny plastic gun of his toy robot into his mouth? Or climb near a window ledge on the twentieth storey? I highly doubt so.

Even human parents, who do not see the full picture, say ‘no’ to their children.

What more a divine parent, if we do indeed believe that he is omnipotent and all-seeing?

Why does god say no? I would think, it’s for our own good.

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Over the years, I’ve gone through a ride. 

I was raised a Roman Catholic.

I stopped going to Church. Then I returned. Then I stopped again.

I’ve read books by the Pope, Protestant pastors, Christian writers, Buddhist monks, secular writers; read books about Gandhi, Islam, St Francis of Assisi, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mother Teresa and other spiritual leaders; went through teachings of the major religions.

I’ve spoken to people.

I’ve read about God, talked about God, spoken to God, listened to God. 

I believe I’ve experienced God.

I’ve asked, wondered and contemplated. 

Debates about the existence of God rage on.

So do those regarding religion.

What do I make of all this? 

Fundamentally, I believe in God.

I cannot at all claim to know many religions. I cannot even claim to have absorbed their teachings and theories, and certainly cannot say I have lived as one of them.

But that is one thing that I am very sure of.

God is bigger than, broader than, wider than, deeper than, older than, and beyond all and any religion.

I have absolutely no doubt about that.

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When I see a beautifully knitted sweater on the couch, I assume that someone knitted it and put it there.

When I see an apple, I assume that it came from an apple tree.

In none of these situations, do I assume that what I witnessed was a random occurrence, one in a trillion chance of happening, which came about because of some huge cosmic coincidence.

In all of the situations - actually, in every situation - I always assume that there is a perpetrator, a designer, a creator, a cause.

For every effect, I always assume a logical cause.

Are all humans wired up like me? I’m not sure.

Whatever the case, I personally believe that there is an intelligent and logical cause for the universe and everything in it.

For me, that is the default. Until proven otherwise.

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I think the average God-believer has probably made thousands of prayer requests to God.

Any many, if not most, of the prayers are probably unanswered.

Have you ever looked back and wondered what would have happened if God had really answered all your prayer requests affirmatively?

I think a lot of things could have gone wrong, or developed horribly.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think we would agree that we were better off not having some of our prayers answered.

That being the case, not answering some of our prayers was actually a great favor, a great gift, which God gave us.

Do we appreciate and give thanks for that?

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 *******

A mountain climber would scale the heights and, if it started to get dark before he reached the top, he would do one thing.

The mountain climber would strap himself to a rock.

When morning came, although he would not have made any progress, he would also be sure that he would not have gone downhill, and that was the most crucial thing in the circumstances.

“The most important thing is that I’m still there when the morning came,” he said.

In our dark moments, when the sun sets and night falls, when we cannot see and are afraid, strap on to God; he is our rock, and in God we can trust. 

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