God and reality

God exists. Putting it so simply and so bluntly may be taken as an offense by some, but the reality is that there is a God. As much as I enjoy a good discussion and dialogue, a casual and cavalier conversation debating this strikes me as being very odd. G.K. Chesterton once remarked that if asked for arguments supporting the existence of the sun in the sky, the most natural and normal thing is just to say: “Look at the sun!”

Forty-some years of life experience has led me to lose confidence in the worldview, or faith, of the fine folks even now muttering under their breath. For the dogma of the day, secular fundamentalism aside, is that the question of God’s existence shall henceforth and hitherto remain an open question, an intensely private and personal question, forever and ever. Amen.

I grew up sitting at the feet of the CBC like so many other good little Canadians. Oh, it was always nice and polite, sophisticated and attractive, and yet, to a shocking extent, just slick propaganda. I got in the habit of comparing stories produced by the CBC with a number of other media companies and doing a bit of research myself. Over the years, I started wondering why naturalism – not to mention the “Natural Governing Party” – was so deceptively being sponsored by our state broadcaster.

After all, if the latest flavour of naturalism was so obviously the choice of progressive people everywhere, why was it necessary to constantly resort to manipulation and lies?

Going to college, I started planting trees in the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia and just couldn’t seem to stop. For 8 years I studied at private schools committed to the Gospel or good news about Christ, and for 10 summers I worked with many students from public universities committed to, well…everything else. While this experience challenged me in some ways, in the end it left me feeling sad: For it became apparent that many of my friends and co-workers had unknowingly paid for the privilege of being pleasantly rammed through our society’s public secularization system. They set out for university to get an education and a job, and then got broadsided with a truckload of narrow ideology.

As the aforementioned Englishman once more or less remarked, why is it that all the so-called “free thinkers” come to the same old boring and predictable conclusions?

Teaching in Eastern Europe, in Lithuania, was an experience I will never forget. It was humbling to have students working on their third language while I was still struggling with one.

As well, this gutsy group of people were among the first to pull the plug on the former Soviet Union – that lovely land of state-sponsored caring and compassion, concentration camps and thought control. A monument of an emaciated man was placed prominently in a park close to the college. This man, who represented the bondage experienced at the hands of the communist oppressors, had a large clamp on his head. How fitting.

And how is it that we can easily spot God-denying mind control on the other side of the world, but can’t seem to see it in our own back yard?

More recently, working as a maintenance man in Quebec has been an enlightening experience concerning the issue oddly questioned. Yes, it was in the land of Catholicism and the joie de vie, the Quiet Revolution and soaring rates of suicide, that I had my epiphany.

I had been lectured on the importance of jumping up and down and wildly applauding whenever it was declared that the universe made itself. But once I got around to reading all sorts of books explaining exactly how this was supposed to work, I didn’t feel so inclined.

Now each day I would go to work and fix things. Not previously familiar with this type of work, it was amazing to me just how many things fell apart and how often. “If they build it, it will break,” could easily be the maintenance team’s motto. This got me thinking:

If buildings and equipment require constant care, who takes care of the universe? Does anyone really believe that this incredibly complex, fine-tuned and life-sustaining system maintains itself?

To the diligent doubter of the divine, who even now complacently cradles their Starbuck’s coffee and their very own copy of The Da Vinci Code, etc. I say in conclusion:

Wake up! There is a God.

© Career & Life Direction 2012. All rights reserved.

*Please note, gentle reader, that the tone of this article is intended to be provocative but not at all harsh. If you feel like you have been whacked a wee bit..I hope you understand that this was done with the best of intentions. Peace.