God Is Real?
You may be part of a Jewish family. Or a Muslim family. Or Christian or Hindu. Maybe your family doesn't embrace any religion. Maybe you've never even encountered the concept of a Supreme Being, or God.
Or you may be questioning whether there is a God. You might be thinking that God is just a product of the human imagination - a fairy-tale explanation for all the unexplainables. So why should you buy into something that isn't visible?
Questioning is a form of "thirsting." And whenever we really thirst for truth, we eventually find it!
Humanity has spent a lot of time and energy searching for the truth over the centuries. The Torah, Koran, Holy Bible, and Bhagavad-Gita show the thirstings of humankind for a higher understanding of life itself - its source, its creation, its unfoldment, its purpose.
But you say: "I need to experience God to believe in Him. I can't just read about God." That's true. Other people's thoughts and experiences can inspire us, but our own faith and understanding of the Supreme Being must come from within us.
My personal relationship with God was an outgrowth of a turbulent childhood, where I often felt I had no one to support and love me. Yet I felt a very real, spiritual presence fill my thoughts at night. And I would pour out my heart to the One who became my best friend. Through the desire to do and be good, I was led to solutions. I knew that this friend was not me or any concoction of the human mind. I knew it was God. Looking back, I realize that the divine presence was revealed to me as I was humble, trusting, and expectant of good. This phrase from the book of Philippians in the Bible captures what I experienced: "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding" (4:7).
To me, a child in great need, God was as real as the air I breathed!
But it was different for a close college friend of mine. She had considered herself an atheist most of her life. My friend began smoking marijuana. As the years progressed, she realized that she didn't have the ability to free herself from strong dependence on it.
She explained to me that one evening, alone in her office, she muttered a skeptic's plea: "OK, God, if You're really here, which I don't think You are, and if You really love me, which I don't think You do, and if You can really help, which I don't think You can, then get me home tonight without smoking a joint!" She confessed she honestly hadn't believed it was possible. But in that moment she realized she couldn't stop the drug dependency on her own. No amount of willpower and intellectual reasoning was going to make her free.
Well, she not only made it home without a joint, but she hasn't touched one since that day, which was over ten years ago. And it wasn't long before her need for cigarettes and alcohol and other drugs dropped away, too. On that drive home, she discovered there is a power higher than the human mind; she now openly refers to this power as God.
In her own words: "It was clear to me that God had worked a miracle in my life. I couldn't take any human credit for that experience." What some might call miracles are actually natural events, the result of God's law of good for all.
Can each of us have a personal relationship with God? Absolutely. In fact, we do already, although we may not have realized it. As one young man I know puts it: "God is here for everyone. We just have to get to it, acknowledge it, shutting out all the noise of the world and listening to it alone. Getting still inside. Knowing that there is a Life-force. And we're the expressions of a higher Mind."
To me, Christian Science reveals unmistakably the truth. Along with the Bible, "Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures," written by Mary Baker Eddy, is the essential work on this subject. It describes God as "the great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence" (Pg. 587).
Still skeptical? The answers to your questions will be revealed as you continue your quest and listen for what's right. Enjoy the activity of spiritual growth!
