Believe

John 3:16 (The Message)

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.

And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

How does "Believing" work, anyway?

On the one hand, not too easily.

We've got lots of reasons not to believe in anything anymore, don't we?

Turn on the news, and you'll quickly hear all the reasons that we ought not believe in our leaders, institutions and each other. Scandal, corruption, lies and secrets. Murder and terrible crimes, committed against one another.

It's been said that we now live in a "post-modern" time. That our current, cultural form of thought is suspicion and cynicism. We've lost faith in ourselves, and perhaps most everything else. A lot of folks out there are just about ready to give up.

Excellent.

That's just about the place that God can speak to us most clearly.

Because though it might seem easier not to believe at all on the one hand, exactly the opposite is true.

Not believing may be a way to insulate ourselves from pain...but it's also a wonderful way to take on more burden than we can carry. None of us can make it in this world without belief, and connection to something much greater than ourselves.

In the end, the only real authority is God. Deep down, we know that we cannot make ourselves or the world around us, that we are no accident, and that we have a primal need for connection to our maker.

So...it's time to consider, and then make the jump. Believe.

It's the path...to "whole and lasting life."

Prayer: God our Father, we pray that you would help us today to learn to believe. We take a step of faith, and you open a world of possibility. When all else has failed...you never will.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.