To those in search of answers for the tough questions, revelation of a distinct purpose, and an all-encompassing Peace: may these words bring you comfort.
I must digress. I have a heavy heart as I slowly peck away at these keys. I have had writers block before, but this is distinct. I am not sure where to begin. This week has been challenging both mentally and physically, but this message has been on my heart for a few months, and this week has cultivated (perhaps blossomed is more suitable) full blown discontentment which has troubled me deeply. This uneasy conscious is primarily rooted in interpersonal relationships I have developed, ones that I have maintained, even if at a distance, and relationships that I long to have. I have had a longing to converse with everyone of those relationships on this message, digest their thoughts and produce this message. I feel as though now, is good as any to reiterate the findings and thoughts I have concluded. I have such a burden for this message I must share- I hope that I do it justice with my feeble attempts to reason with those who consider yourselves logical, critical and theological thinkers. To those that agree with this disposition, may it in turn serve to strengthen your resolve to finish the race or allow it to pick you up, dust yourself off and finish the race set before you. That being stated, I would never consider myself a man of immeasurable knowledge. However, of this I am sure, I have an utmost peace that attests to my assurance in this message. May this message not be ascertained for any glory of my own, but for the purpose of educating many, bring honor to He who alone is worthy, and in a sense bring me a degree of comfort by sharing this heavy laden burden I endure in carrying this message so close to my heart. This message pertains to a question, one that has been posed in many different ways. I have come to call them "If, Then" statements. But they all beg the same question in essence. "If", implies a suspicion in the honesty or in this case the existence of something. "Then", would conclude that "If" the previous statement is true, "Then", the following must statement must correlate. It must correlate to the existence of something in this case. The existence of more. The existence of answers. The existence of the divine. The existence of GOD.
I do not pretend to be able to answer all of the "If, then" questions, but I would be remiss if I did not not level the playing field. I may not be objective in my opinions on God, but considering I am a man of faith- I have faith you will finish reading in order to hear me plead my case. I would love to, in fact, I long to respond to any of the questions you may raise. But, as I have discerned from relationships with many Agnostic and Atheist acquaintances and even friends (yes, we can still be friends, and in my case family members) you may not call it faith, but you have to trust in the unseen as well. Your trust in the unseen is called theories. Theories are not proven and require you to trust what you have not seen or been able to prove. Faith and theories, at times, are both unseen and unproven. So with that in mind, whether you agree or not, we must begin to look at things that have been proven. I feel a burden for you to know the truth. Let's be practical here. Put aside the hell, fire, and brimstone conversations you have had, put aside the notion that I am trying to "save you", or that you may consider it is ignorant to believe in such a thing as a greater being. Let your guard down for one second. Let me ask you a a question. Have you ever pondered the expanse of the universe? How infinitesimally minute we are even in or own solar system? The best explanation I have come across is from a sermon series called, "Indescribable" by Louie Giglio. I will try to make this as simple as possible. Space is too enormous to use our earthly measurements, so we use something called a light year (the distance light travels in a year). Light travels 5.8 trillion miles in a year. In case you were wondering, light travels 186,000 miles a second. So lets put things into perspective. The milky way (always reminds me of the candy bar. Guess that's the skinny kid in me) galaxy is 120,000 light years in diameter. Let that sink in. Got it? One-hundred and twenty light years. Now Voyager 1, our fastest space vessel travels at a speed of 39,000 miles per hour. At that speed, it would take Voyager 1- roughly 16,977 years to travel only one, yes only one, light year. Remember our galaxy is 120,000 light years in diameter. Lets follow the math, don't worry I will do it for you, just pay attention and stay with me. So going the fastest we possibly can, it would take us- Two Billion, Thirty-seven million, two-hundred and forty thousand years to exit the milky way galaxy. Do you know what that means? It's never going to happen.
You may be asking why any of that is relevant, and I hope you are still with me. God has never asked us to separate religion from Science. That was man's doing. Search the Bible, and you will see God ordained science to declare the riches of His intelligence, and creativity of His design, all for us to discover and marvel at the work that He put into the Universe. The point is that there are billions and billions of galaxies just like ours. How can it be possible that we are here by accident, that something so expansive as the universe came into being by accident? We are not the center of the universe as we seem to attribute ourselves to be, heck we are not even the center of our own galaxy, or solar system. We are tiny. A speck. Nothing. But we are here, on this rock for a reason. We are not the by product of an imbalanced equation balancing itself out. We are an anomaly. We are perfectly positioned. We have a breathable climate. Trees that act in unison as respiration partners with us as they are expelling oxygen for us to breathe, we expel carbon dioxide to keep the cycle going. All of nature has a natural rhythm, a heartbeat, and simultaneous pulse. We have Oceans that do not flood us daily because of the positioning of a moon. A moon that is thousands of miles away. Not too far, but just right. We are not to close to the sun as to burn us like that unlucky worm that ventures out onto asphalt, but just far enough to live comfortably. If we were a result of particles pouncing around, then that begs the question where did the particles come from? Everything in life has a Genesis if you will. This is where you must choose. Two roads diverging in a yellow wood kind of choice. To have faith a divine being came from nothing, or that particles came from nothing. Either way you must accept we are the result of something that we cannot and will not ever fully comprehend. But have you ever wondered if knowing truly makes the situation any better? Does knowing you have cancer make it any easier to believe or handle the stress that lies ahead? The burden of prove may be substantial, but i submit the burden of omniscience would be crushing. Yet, that is what we strive for in accordance to our inquisitive nature. I ask you to reason which is more plausible. Intelligent design, or happenstance, chance, luck, a big boom. I would say there was certainly a really big bang. A big bang when God spoke. The God of the Universe declares that the Heavens are His throne, the earth is His footstool. The biggest expanses that we will never travel into (even with the Millennium Falcon), are something He sits on and props His feet on. A throne and footstool that He literally willed into being by the simple words of His mouth, that as He spoke light came screaming out of His mouth at 186,000 miles a second.
To surmise my message, I have many reasons I know my Redeemer lives, but the one I have briefly stated here is that He is too magnificent for us to try to box Him in with our human minds. He is truly Indescribable, His ways are not our ways, and neither are His thoughts our thoughts. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways, and thoughts higher than ours. He is enormous. We can not contain Him in our puny religious box, our lavish churches, or whatever feeble humanly attempts we make. How can you look at the Heavens that declare His glory, and the skies that are the work of His hands and not submit that there is something greater than your mind can rationalize away as mere theories or happenstance. For nature pours forth speeches of adoration for Him daily, with the rising of the sun and the setting of the same, yet they use no words. I beg you, humble yourself to a loving God that literally breathes stars like our Sun into existence. He have all turned away and gone astray like sheep and turned to our own logic, but God invites us, implores us, pleads with us, sustains us, carries us, comforts us, sent His son to dies for us- all as a grand gesture of love. He loves you so much that he invites us into a personal relationship where we will be His people and He will be our God. He exists. He desires mercy, not sacrifice. You no longer have to live a performance based life where you are loved for what you accomplish. He just asks that you acknowledge Him. I could continue this dialogue forever expounding on the riches of His glory, but I fear I may lose many or you due to my long winded remarks. In conclusion, I hope for you all to know I pray for you earnestly to let the Holy Spirit impress these truths upon you, and remind you in your times of doubt, and for those that are new to these concepts, I pray for you as well- in order to fully receive these ideas and continue to search for God on your own according to His grace.
May He who is alone Worthy, and able to reveal the mystery of Glory of His existence to the darkened heart and mind do so in accordance to His will.
In Christ,
Kyle Worthy
Love your blog
ReplyDelete