- Doubting God
- God Reached Out
- Relying on Divine Identity
- God is the Beginning
- Faith in God Brings Hope
- Finding Out for Yourself
- Want to Read More on Seeking Christ?
Who is God? Is He even real?
People throughout the history of the world have wondered about, imagined, and worshipped gods of all sorts, but many of those gods are now viewed as mythologies solely constructed by humans in their search for meaning.
But does that mean that there is no God?
No. I believe that God is real and that He has and does reveal Himself to His children here on earth. I’m sure there are many people who would debate me on this belief, but let me share with you what I believe about God and how I came to believe in Him.
God is our Father in Heaven – Father of our spirits, Father of our bodies. He created us and the earth. God gave us the opportunity to learn, grow, and become more like Him through the difficulties we face here on earth.
But hearing this doesn’t mean it’s easy to understand or accept this doctrine. For me, it took a gradual journey of assessing what I had been taught growing up and what I actually believed.
Doubting God
I want to go back to when I was about thirteen years old and didn’t believe in God.
Some background: my parents are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as am I. They have been for their whole lives. In fact, my family has been members for generations. Literally.
So, growing up, I had tons of exposure to God and religion and all things in the church. But I never really bothered to figure out if anything I was learning was true. My parents believed it. They told me it was true. As a kid, what else did I need? I had no reason to question them.
That changed as I got older. When I was about thirteen, I hit a period of depression. I don’t want to go into details because depression is not the point of this post, but the important part of this is that I hit a point where I didn’t really believe in anything.
On Sundays, I fought my parents about going to church. I think I only won that fight once. Every other Sunday, I ended up at Church whether I wanted to be there or not. I isolated myself and avoided learning anything about God. I believed that there was nothing out there to believe in, so there was no point to life.
I didn’t believe God was real, and I had no idea how anyone else had a clue about God.
After all, how could I have gone my whole life believing in God only to end up hurting as much as I did?
For the record, these are definitely things not to do when you are questioning everything you were raised to believe.
God Reached Out
Luckily, this fight didn’t last forever.
First of all, I’m not going to say that if you believe in God you will never be depressed again. Depression is part of life for many people, and as long as we live here on earth, that will be true. Depression has returned periodically throughout my life, even since I was converted.
That conversion came gradually.
It started with being at church and hearing about God (even if it was resentfully). Over time, seeds were planted in my heart.
When I finally found myself in a situation where my heart and mind opened to God, the Holy Spirit gave me the godly equivalent of a hit upside the head and basically told me to stop resisting what I had already come to believe.
God is real. He knows me. He knows you.
It wasn’t the answer to everything, but it was enough for that moment.
With that in mind, and with help and encouragement from leaders in the church, I started to read the scriptures. I started to pray. And the seeds in my heart started to grow.
I had so many questions, but when I looked, I found some answers. I still have questions, and I still get answers. It’s a process of praying and studying that takes time and effort, but God is there through it all.
I learned that God is real. And once I accepted that, I was able to appreciate that He is my Father.
Relying on Divine Identity
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, girls ages twelve to eighteen (including me during that time) memorize these words:
“We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him.”
lds.org
This is just the start of a full theme that girls are taught, but this sweet statement resonated with me more and more as I grew and learned. It has become an important part of my identity.
As a daughter of God (or as sons of God for you men out there), I receive God’s love, whether I feel worthy of it or not. I am given blessings and can communicate with Him directly in prayer.
I understand who I am and where I come from.
God is the Beginning
Understanding that God is our Father helps us learn and understand other things about Him and His gospel.
I had a religion teacher who loved reminding the class that if you get God wrong, you get everything else about religion wrong, and that if you get God right, you get everything else about religion right too.
Applying this line of thinking to my personal experience, understanding that God was my Father also meant understanding that He has a plan for me (and each of us) so that we can return to Him. This plan gives life a real purpose to me and my life.
God being my Father means that I have someone to go to about anything and everything in my life. It means that I have an all-knowing, all-powerful Being in my corner all the time.
I came to understand better the significance of God sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer for our sins, to die, and to overcome death. God is Christ’s Father and my Father. He was willing to send His eldest Son as a sacrifice to save me and all of us, to bring His children home. And Christ willingly agreed to take on that role.
Because God is my Father, Jesus Christ is my brother. This was an exciting realization for me when I was younger because I always wanted a brother but only had sisters. But it means more than that too. It also means that Christ loves us and our Father enough that He did what needed to be done (His Atonement) to keep our family together.
Knowing that God is my Father means that I have a family, forever. It means that when the Bible says:
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 1:27, King James Version
it means that God looks like me. That He has a body like I do – a perfect, godly, immortal body – but a body nonetheless. I was made to be like Him because I am His child.
Faith in God Brings Hope
In the years since I learned for myself that God is real, that God is my Father, and that He loves me, my whole outlook on life changed.
Even during periods of depression through high school, I had hope because I knew there was someone who believed in me and who loved me. I knew He had a purpose for me and that I could keep going because of it.
I can trust now that when things don’t go my way, things will work out.
I know when I meet people in need, they are not forgotten. God loves them just as He loves me. He is their Father too, and He will give them what they need. Sometimes I can be the one God uses to help that person, sometimes not, but those people are always remembered by God.
This belief might seem silly to some people. I get it; an all-powerful Being that lives somewhere in the universe, caring even a speck about us messed up creatures? A Being that says He loves us when all around in the world is hate?
I see how this could seem like a fairytale or a myth that we tell ourselves to feel better about life.
But it isn’t a fairytale.
To me, it makes more sense than anything. The fact that good things do happen, that incredible things happen at just the right times, that we learn from mistakes, that we can continually progress – it all adds up to God as our Father. Taking everything in life together, I’ve never found a more satisfying conclusion than God.
Maybe we live difficult lives. But we become better because of it.
No, we don’t live in a perfect world. God didn’t give that to us. He lets us struggle because in the struggle we can grow. We can turn to Him in those low moments and build an even stronger relationship with Him.
Finding Out for Yourself
I probably didn’t resolve every fear or doubt you have about God in this post.
But the One who can is God Himself. If you have these doubts or questions, it might mean that you need answers. So do what Jesus Himself said:
7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Matthew 7:7, King James Version
This scripture is a promise. It’s a promise that if you look for answers, you will find them. It’s a promise that if you want to know who God is, if you want to know that He is your Father, you can find out from the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
It may take time. Asking once may not bring an immediate answer. But have faith in the process and trust that your desire to know is enough to bring you the answers you need.
Want to Read More on Seeking Christ?
Divine Identity, God’s Love, and Spiritual Growth
Teagan’s Testimony of God’s Love
Why I Stay in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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