Here is where faith begins. “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator…” You are not an accident. You are not merely the best mutation in the neighborhood. You are not merely a species who is really good at avoiding getting eaten by another species. You can seek design and purpose in your life because you were created according to a design. And a “very good” one at that.
If you believe in “God the Father almighty, creator…” then you can say:
My life can glorify God. Creation’s loud speech, that wordless praise, is the song my life is meant to sing. I know how far from the glory of God I fall short. I know how entangled and entrapped my life can become. I know how off-key is the song of my life. But somehow it is possible for my life to offer one more speech directed to the great and the good. To join in the chorus with the stars. To glorify God means to believe your life can point to his substantial goodness and righteousness. It means that your life can fit with all kinds of other pieces of truth that contribute to the great truth, the great reality that a glorious God decided to create the dust of the unformed universe, out of which he would create stars and planets and beagles and fish and human beings. This is the truth, the unassailable truth, that there is more than us. We are not the biggest and the best. We come from a master artisan who had a master design and who is still shaping the stuff of our lives. We must seek God’s help for that to happen.
If you believe in “God the Father almighty, creator…” then you can know:
Nothing that exists was made evil. If God is great and God is good, then it is impossible for him to create sin or wickedness. He did not and does not create the malevolent or the immoral. Somehow things got spoiled. Things that were whole got cracked and fell to pieces. God began the creation with “let there be light,” and the darkness was filled, but in the history of the world the light keeps getting turned off, and the shadows take over–but only for a while.
In the beginning God created the land and the seas and said, “It is good.” Then the plants and trees, “and God saw that it was good.” The two great lights in the sky–good. The great creatures of the sea, every winged bird, livestock, reptiles–good, good, good. And when it was all done, when God finally placed someone like himself in the world, a creature of clay with spirit, like God able to sense the right, sentient, intentional, and spiritually perceptive, then God stood back from it all and pronounced it not just good, but “very good.”
What has been the most spiritually influential experience of your life? See the survey HERE.