In my limited experience of 44 years I have talked with many people from many walks of life. I've been inside jails, college classrooms, in taverns and in cathedrals. I have conversed with rich and poor, scholar and uneducated, religionist and atheist, scientist and poet. One thing that appears to be common to all categories. People pray. Some may not believe in God, but they pray. Some may not even believe in prayer, and yet still pray. It seems to be instinctive with the human species. There is an inborn sense in folks that there is another transcendent realm beyond the sight, sound and touch reality with which we can connect. It is because we are spirits. We have minds, and we live encased within bodies, our Earth-suits, but essentially we are spirits, made in the image of God. We instinctively know that this life is not all there is, and thus there is a continuation after this mortal body decays. Beyond the traditional spirituality of mainstream churches and synagogues, our society is fascinated by angels, demons, after-death experiences, visions, dreams, and supernatural occurrences.
Materialists would simply say that this spirituality/religion is a delusion, a make-believe world that humans fabricate in order to cope with a world either too painful or too nonsensical to take at face value. They say it is a world of superstition that mankind may ultimately outgrow. Voltaire, the noted French skeptic who died in 1778, predicted that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence and pass into history. Fifty years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society moved into his house and began using his own printing press to produce thousands of Bibles to be distributed worldwide. Voltaire has passed into history. Today Christianity, now two thousand years old, is experiencing a phenomenal growth worldwide. It has survived the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Enlightenment. It has survived evil popes, religious wars, inquisitions, man's traditions, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, and John Lennon.
How is this possible, one may say? I believe it is because the Christian message is truth, and truth has survival value. I believe it is because real Christianity has real answers to real problems. Most of all it is because Jesus is alive and active on the earth today in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Christians of today have real and tangible experiences of His presence within and around them. He walks with us and talks with us. He directs our paths, and helps us to prosper. His kingdom lives within us, a kingdom of peace and joy in communion with the Holy Spirit.
Many people are beginning to recognize the inability of modern secularism to provide answers to life's dilemmas, and are hungry for ultimate satisfaction. I believe that Jesus Himself is the answer. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the antidote for that sense of alienation and void that we suffer. He is the lover of our souls which washes away the feeling of condemnation and guilt which follows along behind us like a shadow. The Charles Wesley hymn says it best: "Jesus, the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease, 'Tis music in the sinners' ears, 'Tis life and health and peace." I'm so glad I learned to trust Him. And the wonderful thing is this - the only thing I had to give up to receive Him was the thing that was killing me - my foolish pride.
@ copyright 1996 by Scott H. Northrup. All rights reserved.