It's Time for a Trim and a Shave
Imagine a customer at a barber getting his hair and beard trimmed when the barber and patron strike up a conversation. They talk about many things and various topics, and for a moment, the topic shifts to God.
The barber says, "I don't believe God exists."
"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.
"Well, just look out there in the street. What happens out there shows that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, why are there sick people? Why are there abandoned children? If God exists, surely there would be no sickness or suffering. I can't imagine a loving God would let all this happen."
The customer pauses to think for a moment, but doesn't respond, not wanting to start an argument. The topic changes, the barbar finishes his work, and the customer leaves the shop.
He no sooner walks out the door than he sees a man on the street with long, unkempt hair, dirty and tangled, with an untrimmed beard. The man looked dirty and neglected.
The customer turns on a dime and marches back into the shop, "You know what? Barbers don't exist!"
The barber objects, "How can you say that? I am here, and I am a barber. And I just cut your hair!"
"No!" the customer retorts boldly, pointing out the window. "Barbers don't exist, because if they did, there would be no people with long, dirty hair and untrimmed beards like that man out there."
"But barbers do exist!" the barber argues. "What you see is their own fault; why don't they come to me?"
"Exactly!" the customer agreed. "That's the whole point!"
The argument that God must NOT exist because ugliness and evil does, is nothing but a strawman fallacy of the ultimate proportion.
In this ugly, unkempt, messy, stinky, dirty world, God indeed exists. Yet it is up to US to seek Him. And once we seek Him, it is up to US to actually settle into His chair to let Him conform us into a more beautiful image ... into HIS image!
"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13, ESV).
"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV).
"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:29, ESV).
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2, ESV).
"And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:10, ESV)."And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24, ESV).
Test the Ice
My brother and I wanted to play hockey on the frozen lake. We believed that the ice was thick enough, the temperature was well below freezing for several days. So we began to crawl slowly on the ice to make sure what we believed was true.
As we went out further and further, a truck pulling a trailer with an ice fishing hut drove right passed us. As soon as we saw that, we jumped up with greater confidence and played hockey all day!
As we look around the universe, we see God's creation and other evidence which build our faith. As we continue to search, we find more and more evidence. Eventually, our faith grows stronger. We test the ice, and find that Christ is a firm foundation.
Faith is NOT blind faith. Seek and you will find! Faith affirming evidence is all around you!
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible" (Hebrews 11: 1-3, ESV). Hebrews 11:1-3
"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse" (Romans 1:20, ESV).
Perfect Puffer Fish Creation Points to a Perfect Creator
The inconspicuous, boring looking little Puffer Fish is perhaps nature’s greatest artist. “To grab a female's attention," reports BBC Earth, "he creates something that almost defies belief.”
With only his fins as tools, he “plows the sand” on the ocean floor with “mathematical perfection,” creating an artistic masterpiece to entice and impress potential mates.
BBC Earth concludes, "Nowhere else in nature does an animal create something as complex and perfect as this. If this doesn't get him noticed, nothing will."
Click here to watch a video of this awe-inspiring artistry.
Complexity and perfection in nature shouldn’t "defy belief," as this narrator suggests. Rather these marks of "mathematical perfection," intellegence, and design should drive us to an unequivocal belief in the Creator behind all this beauty, complexity, and perfection.
Truly, how can one see this and NOT see God?! To paraphrase the words of the narrator, "If this doesn't get God noticed, nothing will."
Yet people look at the amazing creation all around them, refusing to see God in it. In so doing, the book of Romans condemns them as “supressing the truth in unrighteousness."
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" (Romans 1:18-20, NIV).
This is true throughout all of creation.
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world" (Psalm 19:1-4, NIV).
Don't slience the voice of all creation ... Worship and serve the Creator!