The first time I was asked that question, I was in the middle of my residency in clinical pastoral education at Toronto Hospital. I think that was the first time I ever put thought to the feeling.
I believe in God because I can’t imagine life without that belief. Believing in God provides meaning for me. It helps me to make sense of the world and sense of the senseless. Believing in God makes life purposeful. I am part of history and have a part to play bringing forward the past into the future. I have obligations to myself and others. I am part of a community. Believing in God adds mystery and awe to a Universe that is, to me, unknowable. Believing in God gives grandeur and majesty to science, a greater sense of wonderment. As Charles Darwin said, “I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of design.”
Believing in God helps protect me from myself and the abyss that waits for me when I fall into a dark place. Believing in God keeps me from asking “Why me” when life is difficult, painful, or hurtful or held down in suffering. I think about God’s answer to Job:
“Brace yourself like a fighter: I am going to ask the questions, and you are to inform me! Where were you when I laid down the earth’s foundations? Tell me since you are so well-informed! Who decided its dimensions, do you know? Or who stretched the measuring line across it? Who supports its pillars at the base (Job 38:3-6)?
I wasn’t there at the beginning and I will not be there at the end. It isn’t necessary for me to know “why” all the time. What matters is my response to the question. Will it make me bitter or better?
But I know there is a beginning and end of time and that I matter because I have a part to play somewhere between the two.
