A while back I received an email that the head of the School
of Electrical and Information Engineering at my university, Wits, needed to
have a meeting with me urgently. My first reaction was that I felt quite
important, the HOS wanted to see me! I even had the pride to think he would be
congratulating me for something or needed to my help to deal with a class
problem.
When I arrived at the boardroom where I was to meet him I
discovered that I was quite off the mark. There was quite convincing evidence
that I had faked someone’s signature on an attendance register for one of my
tutorials. My heart sank; it hit an ice berg and sank. I was innocent! But I
realized that I had no way of proving my innocence. This reality hit me and it
did something to me. I felt hopeless,
anxious and angry. It changed me for a few hours. The fact that I couldn’t
prove the truth hit me hard. Eventually, however, the matter was resolved and
the truth came out (a few hours later actually).
I was changed for those few hours because I grasped
something true. A most unpleasant truth, but a truth nonetheless: I couldn’t
help myself. I couldn’t perform a Jedi mind trick and cause the HOS’s brain to
be convinced I was innocent. I couldn’t magically find out what actually
happened and conjure up the necessary evidence. I was stuck in an inability to
change my circumstance and it felt horrible.
Reality tends to change people. The reality that green
lights mean go and red lights mean stop has had a drastic impact on drivers and
even more of an impact on those who ignore that reality (pun intended). The reality
that people need food to survive has certainly made a difference to the world.
Also, the fact that semiconductors have a non-linear current-voltage
relationship has revolutionized the planet (Google it). What about the
undeniable fact that every man should have some form of facial hair (wink
wink)? No doubt, true factual reality orders all of life, from technology to
beards!
Whether God exists or not should be of much more concern, therefore,
than many people make it out to be. If His existence is factual and real then
those who know it will change as a result and those who ignore it will once
again be impacted one day. These are the two options, the Christian God exists
or He doesn’t. I recommend that everyone who reads this does some serious
thinking because His existence or lack of existence has serious implications.
Say He does exist, what He has to say and who He is becomes quite important
because if the Bible is actually His words then there’s some serious stuff in
there! Say He doesn’t exist, what the Bible says is totally irrelevant and we
must figure out the actual truth.
If God exists, then we are helpless outside of God. God says
that all people are sinners and need to be saved. Much like my situation in the
HOS’s boardroom, I could not save myself from whatever punishment it might have
incurred.
If God exists, however, then the Bible is true which would mean
that this is true:
“…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and
are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation of blood, to be received by
faith.” (Romans 3:23-25).
The gift of salvation must be received by faith in God’s
existence and who He is and what He has done in His Son Jesus Christ. This is
important!
In thinking this through I have realized the great
importance of knowing what God has to say in the Bible. Because if I truly
believe He exists then those words and teachings must have a massive effect on
my life because they are a reality and I must live according to that reality.
So Christians let’s take this more seriously, there is much
more joy to be found in the scriptures than we have already, we can never have
our fill of who God is. Non-Christians, read the Bible a bit (maybe start with
the book of John), and take the question of whether what you’re reading or not
is true seriously.
God exists.
