Religion Q & A – Believing in God

Anonymous asks: What can someone do if they start doubting that Jesus and God exist? Is there a way for them to start believing again?

Answer: It depends if they want to start believing again or not. It also depends on why they started doubting in the first place.

There are people who start doubting that God exists because they don’t think their prayers are being answered. You can look up past questions on the blog regarding the issue of prayer and read how we can better understand how God responds to our prayers. Then there are those people who doubt God exists because bad things are happening to them and they don’t get why God isn’t helping them out. In this case, they need to stop and look for the good that may be coming out of their situation since it is likely that they have the opportunity to grow in spiritual strength and virtue.

For those who want to believe but just need some reassurance, the best thing for them to do is to ask God to show them how real He is, where He is present, and how He works in our lives. If they pay attention and keep their eyes, ears, and hearts open, they will soon see that God shows his existence through creation…through the people around us…through “coincidences”, events that seem to fall into place which are actually God’s hand taking care of us.

For some people, it doesn’t matter how much proof you present to them. If their hearts are so closed that they are not willing to accept any part of the truth, then they will not accept the existence of God even if He chose to reveal himself to them. This is like the people who saw Jesus in person and witnessed his miracles. They may have started to believe at first, but their pride got in the way of their faith and did not end up following him because of their stubbornness. We can only pray that the Holy Spirit will shed the light of Truth into their hearts so they will be humble enough to open their hearts again.

Regarding the existence of Jesus, we can turn to historical records because we do have proof that Jesus did walk the earth. There is a book called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel that responds to the most common challenges about Jesus being the Son of God. He addresses the questions: How reliable is the New Testament? Does evidence exist for Jesus outside the Bible? Is there any reason to believe the resurrection was an actual historical event?

There are many more resources that will help someone grow stronger in their faith, but it takes a desire to believe and an act of faith to begin the journey.