#10 No God, no hope

So I’m counting down my top ten blog posts to commemorate my ten-year blogging anniversary. Most of them earned a spot by number of views; a few by being well-liked. Number ten here is one of those well-liked ones, boosted a bit by my conviction that it’s a sorely needed message today.

Recently a cousin of a friend of mine put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He was a young man. For him, life was so painful and hopeless that death by his own hand seemed his only option for relief. I can only imagine what that must have felt like.

Suicide rates have been steadily increasing over the last decades, and so have secularism and a rejection of faith in God. I’m as convinced as I can be that there is a direct connection. That’s not to say that no believer in God would ever commit suicide. We too are susceptible to agonizing bouts of despair. But without God we exist as a result of purposeless, mindless randomness and chance, death is the final end of our existence, and life has no ultimate meaning. Hope, which can sustain the burdened and sorrowful person of faith, is denied to the person without faith. And despair without hope is positively deadly.

Men and women have been rejecting God, either implicitly or explicitly, since he created the first of us. Can we agree that that is either, a) wise or, b) stupid? It’s either one or the other, right? And which it is depends on whether or not God does, in fact, exist. Our belief about the existence of God is either the height of wisdom or the depths of folly, because it makes such a tremendous difference in our lives, both personally and corporately. 

Our great nation is suffering violence, tyranny, crimes of all sorts, a breakdown of the family, rampant immorality, a destructive promotion of lies over truth, conflicts, corruption, and a freedom-stifling cancel culture, which can all be traced ultimately to a rejection of God. The state of our union right now is degenerate and precarious because the state of so many hearts is sinful and sick. So the healing of our nation must begin with changing the condition of our hearts, and that’s something only turning to God in repentance and faith can do.

But many believe instead that what we need is the freedom to do whatever our depraved hearts desire, unrestricted by any religious moral code, or a government that enforces an ideology naively promising a utopian existence. Because they don’t believe God even exists, or that if he does he’s not worth their time and attention.

So the question of the existence of God and what he is like is of the utmost significance in our personal lives and as members of a society. If we only spent a fraction of the time investigating and discussing this question as we do on issues like racism, climate change, foreign policy, transgenderism, etc., all of which are impacted by the question of God, we’d be a lot closer to the peaceful, equitable, and even joyful existence virtually all of us want.

If God does not exist, hope is not just elusive, it’s illusory. There is simply no ultimate meaning to your life or mine, and that’s an incredibly depressing thought. Please watch this short video if you are not convinced.