>>stripped of natural charm

for my integrating faith & theory class, our final paper was to write a personal theology (what we believe) about God, creation, Jesus, His revelation to us, church, etc. here is my finished product. the bolded verses serve as transitions between topics and are related to the paragraphs below them.
warning: it’s long.

“O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.”
-Psalm 139:1-2

The task before me is daunting. Laying out my feelings about God and how I believe as a Christian in general is not an easy assignment, particularly at this stage in my life. My belief in God is unwavering, but the feelings I have towards Him change regularly. Though feelings change, facts do not. I know that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. I know that God cares about our lives. I know that God is a God of love, jealousy, mercy, wrath, and grace. Trying to get a clear picture of God is impossible, and I think He designed our minds that way on purpose. God cannot be defined; when you define something, it becomes limited. To say that God is everything is the closest we’ll get to describing his nature and his character. His beauty is everywhere, from the most brilliant sunrise to the fullest of moons. I believe that God communicates with us in small, subtle ways and it’s up to us to pay attention and capture those moments.

I was raised in a Christian home. Every night, my father would sit between me and my brother with a big, illustrated Bible in his lap. He would read out loud and we would examine the pictures, and afterwards we would ask questions. My parents provided both of their children a solid Christian background. They instilled the belief that God created the heavens and the earth, that God wanted us to obey Him, and that God was always close to us. Like many children, I believed in God because my parents told me to. As I’ve grown older, my faith has turned into my own. It’s developed and evolved with me; it is established not only as faith in a higher power, but a power that genuinely forgives, paternally disciplines, and wholly loves.

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save those who are lost.”
-Luke 19:10

Perhaps the greatest teacher and the biggest influence known to man, Jesus Christ was the prime example of true Christian living. Jesus is who we must emulate on a daily basis. He taught us that Christianity demanded sacrifice. In Luke 9:23-24, he calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow him. What he’s really trying to say is that we must follow him regardless of the burdens we carry, because Christianity isn’t about us. His whole ministry revolved around servant hood, helping each other, feeding the hungry, giving to the poor.

Jesus was all God and all man. He was born of a virgin birth, healed the sick, served the living, taught to thousands, and fed the masses, but the testament to his true Godliness is the Resurrection. Only God has the ability to overcome death; this was proved when Jesus raised Lazarus. When Jesus’ tomb was found empty three days after he had been crucified, there was hope. Because Jesus took our place as the sacrificial lamb, his triumph over death means that in him our souls will never truly die.

Jesus is part of the trinity, along with God and the Holy Spirit. The closest approximation I can make to the trinity is a family. Separately, there is the father, the mother, and the children. Together, they make one unit.

The design of a trinity is a design that my mind constantly struggles with, but part of me seems to subconsciously understand how they all interact with each other and with us. I
understand the necessity of the trinity: we pray to God, Jesus intercedes on our behalf, and the Spirit leads us. Beyond that, my mind cannot comprehend it. I equate my feelings of the trinity to staring at the night sky. I often pray outside, and when I’m done I sit on the hood of my car and think about the vastness of the universe and my place in it. I see the moon and the stars and the deepest part of space that seems so far yet so close and I become so overwhelmed that my breath catches in my throat and I have to stop and just be present. Those moments are the moments that I feel closest to God.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
-Genesis 1:1

I believe that the Bible is the divine and inspired word of God. If God cannot lie, then the Bible must be true. If the Bible is true, then all of it is true. The book of Genesis starts off in a very straightforward way: it tells the creation story. I believe that God made the heavens and the earth. However, I cannot deny the discoveries that science has made about the evolution of species, and separation of Pangaea, and the Big Bang theory. I believe that science and God can exist in the same theory. Take, for example, the beginning of the universe. Science is mostly in agreement that at one time, all matter and energy and light and the universe was held together in the center of the space. Upon its explosion, our universe formed. But if energy was a byproduct of the bang, how did it initially get the energy to explode in the first place? The only reasonable answer that I’ve come up with is God.

In the book A Case For Faith, British physicist P.C. W. Davies has concluded that the odds against the initial conditions for the formation of stars (which provide energy, gravity, and therefore are necessary for life to begin) is a one followed by at least a thousand billion billion zeros. William Lane Craig says in the same book that if the rate of the universe’s expansion one second after the Big Bang happened had been smaller by one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would’ve collapsed into a fireball. I find it ridiculous that science is making an effort to explain away God’s hand in the creation of our universe, but I can understand why many people try to do so.

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
-Hebrews 4:12

Through the trials and tribulations of life, I’ve found that the only thing that can stand alone is God’s word. I believe that the Bible is from God and about God, and in order to really love Him, we must know Him. In order to know Him, we must read about Him. The Bible gives insight to God’s character. He speaks through the writers to us. I believe that the promises He made to Moses, David, and Abraham are true for us today. The sermons Jesus gave are relevant to us today and can be applied—they were not just for the Jews and the Gentiles. The letters Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the Romans, and the church in Philippi were not just reminders for those to whom the letters were addressed. They are for all of God’s children.

When I was younger, I often resented going to church. I found it boring and spent most of the sermon drawing on the bulletin and thumbing through the hymnal rather than paying attention to the sermon. Now that I’ve grown, I know that church is an integral part of our faith. In church, we have the ability to surround ourselves with people who share the same beliefs, who understand us, who have the ability to counsel us. That said, I believe that church as a whole is severely misrepresented by the people who call themselves Christians. My youth pastor told me that he loved God, but he hated religion. In church, things often become legalistic. We are more concerned about our outward physical and spiritual appearance than we are with becoming vulnerable and letting our guard down. I think that to a degree church has skewed many nonbelievers’ attitudes about Christianity. They hear news stories about pastoral affairs and think, “Why should I even go? If the leaders are acting this way, what do I have to gain from attending church?” In a world of postmodernism and a struggle to find identity, we as Christians have the ability to offer guidance and demonstrate God’s unconditional love. I don’t believe that it will happen in the traditional sense of the church.

I don’t believe that church has to occur in a building. In church, we minister to each other and are ministered to. I think that going to church in the sense of getting up every Sunday and driving to a building is unnecessary. As long as we are surrounded by believers who are willing to learn and share their knowledge of Christ, church can occur anywhere.

Writing my ideas out has given me a firmer grasp on my beliefs, as I’m sure you knew it would. I journal often but have never really sat down and thought, “Okay. What do I believe? Why do I believe it?” I understand the importance of knowing where I stand, what my morals are, and how engrained those morals are within me. I know now where my strengths lie and which areas I need to improve. Without this paper, I might not have ever come to that realization. Thank you.