Someone has said that atheists read atheistical books just the way Christians read Christian books! I suppose for both it’s about keeping the faith. The atheist has to deal with the question of why we exist and the very question hints that there might be more to being human than living, growing, reproducing, suffering, having fun, struggling and dying. What if the importance of relationships to us - for joy or pain - is a hint that we have been made in the image of God as the Bible says? What if there is a God behind it all, a God who did not make a world like we know it now, but a God who made a good world where love and trust - not fear and suspicion - were basic? What if our sense of right and wrong, our desire for justice, our willingness to love and to put ourselves about, our delight in beauty and music and people, and our horror of ugliness, cruelty, lies and deceit, unfaithfulness and treachery all reflect the God who made us and from whom we have fallen away?

What if the bible’s assertion is true that the world has been turned upside down since our ancestors decided to doubt God and run life on the selfish principle that it’s all about looking out for number one?

What if there is a judgement - that God treats us as human beings and not meaningless machines - and that our choices really matter?

And what if it’s true that God still so loved a broken, proud, frightened, lost and guilty world that he sent his own Son to enter its so human darkness in order to rescue helpless, sin-entangled, guilty human beings? What if his Son became a human being and went through death in our place - even execution on a cross, carrying our sin and guilt, so that he could free human beings, taking away sin, reconciling us to himself, and start the job of making things right again from the inside out...? What if Jesus is alive and is the first-born of God’s new creation? What if he is coming again to judge the world, to vindicate those who have hoped in his mercy, and that then there will then be a new heaven and earth?

What if it’s true that Christians still have to go through the same sort of troubles that afflict every one else in this world - the very things that Jesus himself went through - but that now they go through those things with and in him where nothing can separate them from God’s love?

What if God is like Jesus? What if Jesus was absolutely right when he said that whoever had seen him had seen God? Would you like to know this God? Would you think it was worth taking the risk of trusting him, surrendering to his authority and hoping in his promises? Would you like to be free of guilt and given a purpose bigger than just getting through or just having fun?

What if Jesus’ way of living is the way we are meant to live, even if the world sometimes crucifies Christians for being different and for refusing to go away?

Would you like to believe that this same Jesus is alive today and able to keep all his promises?

What if that personal faith in Jesus trumped all the other questions that life in a fallen world throws up?

The bible is full of the prayers and biographies of friends of God who struggled with life’s contradictions and saw some prayers answered and others seemingly not. And it is full of their encouragement to risk our lives on the personal faithfulness of this God. Christians still mess up and continue to be human - even if some Christians think they have to pretend not to! - but wouldn’t it be worth the risk to believe and go for it? What if??

What if people like me can testify to meeting him, to knowing his presence and love, to having prayers answered, to finding him faithful to his promises and to having a new life - alongside all the difficulties and questions and messes and failures - and to having hope?

Atheists have presumably decided that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, that life has only whatever meaning we may invest it with, and that in the end it is all up to us. That’s a faith, too, and it takes courage to believe it and not give in to despair. What I find harder to get my head round is that many people act as if it really doesn’t matter either way. Huh??!!

April 2010.