Why I am a Christian

Some people become Christians because they find the evidence for a historical, resurrected Jesus to be incontrovertible. Some people become Christians because God helps them through a difficult time.  Most of us have realized how ugly and selfish our hearts are, and we want to give that up, and be made new in Christ.  But I think one of the things that most draws me to God is my sense that there is more – more out there than just me.  Eugene Peterson articulates this so well in his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places:

We sense that life is more than what we are in touch with at this moment, but not different from it, not unrelated to it.  We get glimpses of wholeness and vitality that exceed what we can muster out of our own resources.  We get hints of congruence between who and what we are and the world around us – rocks and trees, meadows and mountains, birds and fish, dogs and cats, kingfishers and dragonflies – obscure and fleeting but convincing confirmations that we are all in this together, that we are kin to all that is and has been and will be.

Not only is this “more” seen in the natural world, but there is a sense of “more” that makes up the goals of my life as well.

We have this feeling in our bones that we are involved in an enterprise that is more than the sum of the parts that we can account for by looking around us and making an inventory of the details of our bodies, our families, our thoughts and feelings, the weather and the news, our job and leisure activities; we have this feeling that we will never quite make it out, never be able to explain it or diagram it, that we will always be living a mystery – but a good mystery.

And I especially agree with that feeling that we are living a good mystery.  We cannot prove God, or fully explain him.  But we can KNOW him…