A Laughable Question...When You Think About It

“Do you believe in God?”

This is the laughable question. The mere asking of the question assumes some things that, in this day and age, we cannot assume. It assumes a meaning of “believe”, a meaning of “God”, and a meaning of “believe in God”. Let me break it down.

Faith is a much-maligned term in today’s discourse. We see it contrasted with reason, as though faith is just a thing that those of us who are less intellectual have in a God that we’ve constructed. It is purported to be intellectually dishonest to believe in God, much less the triune God of Christianity. Faith is seen as an instrument of the weak. Why resort to it when we can appeal to much stronger evidence? Well, here’s a little illustration to show why:

There was a man who crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope. He did this on a weekly basis. Needless to say, he had quite a following of people who would stand nearby and watch his mind-blowing feat. Each performance was more spectacular than the last. He would carry large barrels across. He would run across. He was a pro and the people could see that. So one day, he stood before his crowd and asked them, “Do you think I’ll be able to cross the falls today?” The crowd answered with a resounding cheer. But then he asked a second question: “Which of you is willing to cross on my back?” The crowd was silent. No one but his manager was willing to take that risk and he crossed, manager on his back, just as he had done many times before.

That’s what faith is. The Greek word translated as “faith” in English Bibles is transliterated “pistis”. This word, in Greek rhetoric and just in general use, means conviction and trust. It is not, as some might suggest, merely intellectual assent. When you say Jesus is your Lord, do you mean Lord as in Master? The New Testament uses slave language (Romans 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1, James 1:1, Romans 6), language that we[1] are uncomfortable with, so we defer to the identity of children of God. But the Bible says both, so if we're honest, we should accept both. Are you willing to say that about your life? True faith is not a quick and easy thing to develop but rather it is conviction and trust, two elements that take time and investment. To say that you “believe in God” does not merely mean that you say, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure some God out there exists”.  This brings us to our definition of God and by extension, the answer to our laughable question.

The definition of God (or god, in most cases) makes the inevitable answer to this question a resounding yes. You do believe in a god. Whether or not it is the true God is the real question. There is something or someone that you trust, seek to impress, seek to attain, or that you place as the driving force behind your actions.

Is your life a continuous sequence of events that you try to orchestrate so that you can live the most comfortable life possible? Do you serve a god of comfort?

Are you caught in a continuous struggle to get ahead? Must you consistently outperform those around you? Do you serve a god of success? Or perhaps the god of human praise?

Is money your first and foremost concern? Must you make more money to become more happy? Is mammon your god?

Is your own concern for what you should be doing, where you should be, and how you should live your life your central concern? Simply, are you the focus of a majority of your own mental energy? Even more simply, are you your own god?

See? You thought you'd escape. But you do believe in a god. And if it is any of these things (or anything related to it. I don’t claim to have exhaustively explicated the extensive pantheon of “gods”,) you are an idolater. Yup. Idolatry. Worship of a false god. We all do it. But we like to explain it away, sometimes using God Himself as our excuse.

“This is what God wants me to do.” Mmmm maybe…but it looks to me like this is what your pride wants you to do. Just saying.

“God’s blessed me with all this. It would be a shame not to use it.” Uh huh…And whose glory are you seeking? God’s? Or your own dim, dim, dim light?

I could use more examples but you get the point. So the question remains. What god do you serve? Is it a weak god who can give you nothing, as it was crafted by human hands and minds? Or is it another God?  In some cases, even saying that you believe in “the God of the Bible” can be complicated, as we (as we are wont to do because of our sinful nature) tend to take the Scriptures apart, selecting what we are comfortable with and ignoring the unified, complicated beauty that the Lord saw fit to give us through the inspired words. So be careful if you ask that question. The answer you receive may not come from the place you think it does. So the real question is not, “Do you believe in God?”, but rather, “Do you trust in Jesus Christ, as He was sent by the Father and revealed by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, as the sole purveyor and source of your life and salvation and do you submit to His authority over your life?” Or in other words, “Is Jesus Christ your Lord, Savior, and God?” Yeah, that covers most of it.

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15)

Note: Serving the true God is literally the most awesome thing ever. Ever. Ever ever. To place your trust in the One who loves you and works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to His purpose is to live a life of true peace which culminates in a life of continuous worship for the rest of eternity. Like I said, awesome. 

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[1] We, generally as Americans. We, specifically as African Americans. We even more specifically as African American Christians.