Have you noticed that whether we believe in God or not is always influenced by what is happening to us and around us at any particular point in our lives? People hardly pray when everything is going well with them. On the other hand everybody becomes suddenly spiritual when there is a death in the family. I grew up in a Christian family where we were introduced to the knowledge of God from a very early age. My parents taught us to acknowledge and believe in a personal God whether things went well with us or not.
We always prayed for our meals and said our ‘night prayers’ before going to bed each night. When I was nine I could read the catechism and recite a number of portions. But believe me when I say that this did not in any way make me a true believer in God. By true believer I mean one believing in God from within their heart or from an unwavering conviction. This is the case with many people. Most of us cannot differentiate between knowing God and knowing about God. We grow up hearing about God from others, school prayers and going to Sunday school. But knowing God is a result of that traceable formal acknowledgement of His Lordship over our lives. And this comes as a result of not only becoming aware that there is God but accepting that God is actually a person far superior than everyone else, and that we can have a relationship with Him.


In my last article I gave an example of cockroaches living in your house behind your cupboards eating scraps of food that fall from your table yet denying that you really exist. I also refuted that man including the order that we see around us could be a result of just some power out there called evolution. Believing in God has its own ups and downs just like believing in anything else. Most people cannot make that decision simply because they don’t feel ready to give up their freedom. But the truth is that there is not a single free individual on this planet. We are all enslaved or mastered by something. For example I am bound by God’s laws, but how do you judge those who are ‘free from God’ but operating under the authority of some binding habit or law? This is also some kind of slavery. There is a story about a man who wore a ‘T’ shirt that had two statements written on it. At the front the words: ‘I’m a fool for God’ and the back was written ‘And whose fool are you?’ it is said that whenever this man came across people they would look at him and make fun of him, but as soon as he passed them, the back of the ‘T’ shirt left them searching their hearts. The bottom line is that every single individual on earth pays homage to some greater force. Believe it and accept today; we are not the highest authority in the universe. We might be in charge down here but there is someone out there who decides everything we can’t decide. We have another group of people trying to describe themselves as ‘free spirits’ not under any spiritual authority. These guys are some kind of ‘self governing individuals’ they claim to not be under any superior power.


When God spoke to a man called Moses in the bible, although Moses was aware that he was talking to God his problem was how he was going to tell others that he had actually met God let alone that he spoke to him as well. See Genesis 3:1-14. When I look back at my life growing in a God conscious environment I think I know how Moses felt like. I also had that inner conviction about God but my greatest challenge was how I was going to communicate my convictions to others. We tend to worry more about the response of others ignoring the fact that every one has a right to be or not to be convicted about our own views and findings. The only time we don’t really care whether others believe in God or not, is when we are faced with situations that only God can unravel, and that is why many people tried to pray to Him when they were in trouble and God simply ignored their desperate supplications.
In the book of Psalm 103:7 The Bible says the following about God ‘He made known his ways to Moses,
His deeds to the people of Israel’ [NIV] to be continued. MVK