...I don't believe in God...
I remember uttering those now shocking words when I was about 20. I had recently graduated from a top culinary school and was working at a world-famous, ocean-front resort in South Florida. I had the dubious distinction of being the “room service chef”. What that really meant was pizza-burger-fried chicken chef. Being from North Carolina, I knew I could make the world’s best fried chicken so, when the first order of the evening came in, I confidently went about my business and began to cook. It was my second day. There were twelve cooks on the line in addition to me. All of them were men, as were my Restaurant Chef and Executive Chef. I was the only woman and it was only my second day.
I worked tirelessly in culinary school. I was creative, dedicated, competitive and driven to succeed. I had visions of owning my own restaurant and becoming world famous. I graduated Suma Cum Laude and was recruited by some of the top Chefs in the country. And there I was: day two, frying chicken for Mrs. Green. Of course, I didn’t know who I was cooking for, but I would soon find out. So I put my finished masterpiece on a very expensive Villeroy & Bosch plate, garnished it appropriately, and gently placed it in the window for room service to deliver. My Chef strolled over to my station and asked if I thought my fried chicken was good. I very respectfully advised him that I made the best fried chicken in the world. After all, I am from the South. Filled with pride and confidence, I wiped down my station and proceeded with my next order. And just then reality introduced himself.
My Chef thanked me for making the world’s best chicken and advised me that it was being delivered to Mrs. Green. She paid $1,800.00 per night to stay in the Presidential Suite from September to April, and had been doing so for the last 34 years. She summered in the Hamptons and never touched money. That’s what assistants were for. The full impact did not immediately sink in. So what…some rich old lady ordered my chicken, what was the big deal? Marc, my Chef grinned with anxious anticipation at my assumption. The orders continued to come in and I continued to acclimate myself to the kitchen and my new team.
After about 30 minutes, Marc returned to my station sporting an even larger, but puzzling grin. He then proceeded to congratulate me for being the “first”. So I graciously thanked him and inquired as to which “first” he was referring. In front of my twelve male team mates, he advised me that after thirty-four years of staying at the resort, this was the very first time that Mrs. Green had thrown her entire dinner tray off of the fifth floor balcony. She claimed that the chicken was so bad, not even the birds would eat it and in order to prove her point, she threw it toward the ocean to see if the seagulls might enjoy it. When none flew over, she proceeded to call room service to retrieve her tray which was scattered over a row of extremely well manicured bushes five floors beneath her balcony.
I was mortified. Twelve sets of eyes plus Chef Marc’s stared piercingly through my body as they began to applaud. It took every fiber of my being not to burst into tears and run away. I was certain I would be fired. I spent the remainder of my shift meticulously making pizzas, fried chicken and grilled cheese, with no further incidents. At the end of my shift, I silently walked to the locker room with shame. Everything I had worked for seemed to be crashing down around me and self-doubt permeated my soul.
The next day, I humbly arrived at my work station, committed to proving Mrs. Silver wrong. I used my laser-like focus to try and ease the pain of my culinary rejection. One of my team mates approached me and commented ever so quietly: “You better hope to God Mrs. Green doesn’t want chicken tonight”
“I don’t believe in God”, I quipped.
For the last twenty-odd years, I have remembered that day with great clarity. For the last two years or so, I have thanked God that he didn’t strike me dead right on the spot. In the last twenty months I have fallen head-over-heals in love with my God. Not because He made me rich, or famous, or bought me a restaurant…He didn’t. Not because He made me a great Chef – that part of my life is over. I’m completely in love with my God because no matter how hard I tried not to love Him, He loved me. No matter how hard I tried to prove that I didn’t need anyone or anything, including Him, He pursued me. I made up my own rules, defined my own success, took credit for all I had achieved and yet He patiently and relentlessly waited and watched. The harder I pushed, the more entrenched He became. And when I set out to prove my point through reading and research, He oh-so- gently proved me wrong. The more I read, the more I realized I was wrong. Until one day, I could no longer support my own long-standing belief that God didn’t exist. Suddenly, trees looked greener, clouds looked whiter, smiles looked brighter and everyone looked like God.
So how do you know that God exists?
For believers, it is easy to point to the Bible as the ultimate supporting document for their belief. After all, the very first sentence of the Bible tells us that God exists, because it says that He created heaven and earth. Moreover, when one truly believes the magnitude of the first line of the Bible, the rest of it is comparatively easy to accept as truth.
Only fools say in their hearts “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their
actions are evil; not one of them does good! Psalm 14:1 NLT
But what if you are a skeptic? Where do you find enough credible evidence to convince yourself that God exists? Assuming that a copy of the Bible is currently unavailable to you, what other resources might be at your disposal to validate God’s existence?
CAUSE and EFFECT
Where there is great design, there is a great designer.
Where ever you are right this moment, stop and look around. What do you see? A bridge, a skyscraper, a car, the computer, a plane? At some point in history, not one of these items existed. In fact, until very recently, the skyscraper, the car, computer and the plane had not even been conceived yet. So how do these items bolster an argument for the existence of God? Simple. Each of them is a creation. To “create”, as defined by Merriam-Webster is: to bring into being : cause to exist : make : produce. Wherever you see a creation there must be a creator. Without creators such as Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Eli Whitney or Henry Ford, none of their creations would have come into existence in quite the way we know they did. Yet without God, none of these great men would have come into existence in the first place.
The heavens and the earth are more than great design; they are a miraculous and spectacular creation which resulted from a miraculous and spectacular creator. Without God, all of life is simply an accident.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 NIV 1:1
The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 NIV
CREATION
There are many spectacular examples of God’s power in our world, but two in particular seem to fascinate me.
Have you ever looked up at the sky to view the moon? Have you ever caught a quick glance of the sun?
Did it occur to you that when you look at them, they appear to be proportionately the exact same diameter? Because of their relative locations, the sun and moon appear to be the same size when you look at them from the Earth. Yet they are significantly different in size and each is located at different distances from the Earth. How could each of these distinct bodies be located in the exact perfect location in space for this to be true? Imagine looking up at the sky and the moon appeared to be twenty times larger than the sun.
It is amazing to me that there is such wide support for the “Big Bang” theory. In order to truly support this theory, one must believe that the Earth was formed and “accidentally” landed in the perfect position somewhere in the solar system. Somewhere that would allow the sun and moon to appear proportionately the exact same size when viewed from Earth. And somewhere that allows the Earth to be located at the perfect distance from the Sun to support a hospitable environment. A few miles closer to the sun and we all burn up. A few miles farther and we all freeze to death. If there is no God and life is truly a series of accidents, isn’t it amazing that Earth accidentally formed itself and landed in the perfect position?
A second and even more fascinating example to me is mankind. Each of us is a completely unique and amazing being. Think about this: The number of different ways that DNA can unite to create a human being is 10 to the 2,400,000,000th power. If you wrote that number out, it would be written as a 1 with 2,400,000,000 zeroes behind it. If you wrote 2 zeros per second, it would take you 38 straight years to write out this number. If you wrote five zeros per inch, you would need 7,575 miles of paper.
In contrast, some scientists have stated that all of the particles in the known universe probably add up to 10 to the 77th power, or 1 with 77 zeros behind it, considerably less than the number of ways DNA can unite to create a human.
Eighteen meters of DNA are folded into each cell nucleus which is six microns long. This would be the equivalent of putting thirty miles of fishing line into the pit of a cherry.
If folded one way, the cell becomes a skin cell, if folded another way, the cell becomes a liver cell, and so on. To write out the information in one cell, it would take 300 books with 500 pages in each book! You are unique, scientific fact proves it. You are not an accident, you are a creation.
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Romans 1:20 NLT
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day. Psalms 139:16 MSG
CONSCIENCE
Have you ever felt guilty?
Merriam-Webster defines guilt as: a feeling of responsibility for wrongdoing.
When my daughter was three, we were out shopping one day. Upon leaving one of the stores, we headed to our car, where she began to sob. Her hand was clutched tightly and she held it to her tummy. At first, I thought she was injured or perhaps suddenly ill. But as I knelt down to try and figure out the problem, she opened up her hand and fell into my chest with a big hug. Much to my surprise, her tiny little palm revealed my answer. She had stolen a small rubber eraser. It was a blue and white eraser in the shape of a snowflake. Somehow, she became fascinated enough to take it with her, yet aware enough to know it was not hers. I would argue strongly that this distinctively human sense of right and wrong is an in-born trait. No other creature lives by conscience, they live by instinct alone. Humans, on the other hand feel guilt for wrongdoings, disappointments, tragedies and a host of other situations. While one could argue that this is simply a learned behavior, in my humble opinion, I believe that the human conscience is a gift from God to mankind; a tool we rely on and develop over time to guide us in challenging situations. If murder was legal, would you run out and kill someone for the fun of it? For nearly all of us, the answer is no. It doesn’t have to be written down for us to know instinctively that killing another human is wrong. Humans have been “downloaded” with a conscience. Whether or not we abide by the direction of our conscience is a direct result of our free-will. One can choose to ignore his conscience, but that does not mean it doesn't exist.
Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, fir their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. Romans 2:14-15 NLT
On a good day, enjoy yourself; On a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days so that we won’t take anything for granted. Stay in Touch with Both Sides. Ecclesiastes 7:14 MSG
DO and DONE
In His grace and mercy, God has left us a multitude of signs, tools and situations that support His existence. There are two world's religions: "Do" and "Done" All but one cliam that we must do the work in order to get into Heaven. Only Christianity acknowledges that the work done by Christ is sufficent for redemption.
