The summer was drawing to a close. The late-night ferry crossing from Newhaven, England, to Dieppe, France, was jammed with college students returning to the Continent. There seemed to be no end to the creativity expressed by my fellow travellers in finding places to sleep. But a few of us were enjoying the moon-lit ride too much to miss it by lying comatose while draped over some deck furniture.
Conversation was muted, general, and innocuous. That is, until I brought up The Subject. The G word. I asked the five who were sitting around the table with me what they thought of God.
Their reaction absolutely stunned me. They didn’t curse or argue. They only looked mildly surprised, the raise-one-eyebrow-ever-so-slightly kind of surprise. It was as if they had come across Rip Van Winkle. Where had I been sleeping? Didn’t I know that God was passe?
“God?” one of them replied. “You believe in God?” I could read their expressions: How quaint, they seemed to say. How provincial!
“May I tell you why?” I received five subtle inclinings of the head, so subtle I might have missed them if I had not been looking for a response. But it was enough for me to plunge in.
“To be perfectly honest,” I began, “I suppose the first reason I believe in the God of the Bible is simply because my parents did. I was raised in a home where the Bible was taken seriously.”
“Then if you had been brought up in a Buddhist or Muslim home, that’s what you would believe,” one of my travel-mates responded.
“Yes, that probably is true. At first, that is. But the reason my parents’ faith was so convincing to me is that it worked in their lives. The God they believe in answered their prayers, comforted them in their sorrow, gave meaning to their lives. It would seem that some young people must believe in God in spite of their parents’ belief, not because of it. But that’s only the first reason.”
My listeners seemed surprised that there was more. I saw them shift a little in their chairs. Several actually began to looked interested.
“My second reason for believing in the God of the Bible is the universe around me. Everything I see tells me there is too much design for there not to have been a Designer.”
“But,” countered the one in the corner, “how can you say the world has a designer when there is so much suffering and injustice?”
“Good point,” I agreed, “but a universe damaged by sin is no more a proof of no God than a house damaged by an earthquake is a proof of no architect. That you used the word ‘injustice’ shows me you believe there is a transcendent standard set by Someone greater than we are. Every time we plead, “It isn’t right,” or, “It isn’t fair,” we are appealing to a supreme standard.
“The Author who wishes to inscribe our lives with His own magnificent purpose has written His autograph on our hearts; we must close our eyes to overwhelming evidence to be agnostics.
“Agnosticism (I was using an argument from Fairbairn) assumes a double incompetence–the incompetence not only of man to know God, but of God to make Himself known. But,” I insisted, “God has spoken!”
“I haven’t heard Him,” one student in the corner smiled slyly, as if accusing me of hearing voices in the night.
“Perhaps you haven’t been wanting to hear. Some people don’t find God for the same reason that a thief doesn’t find a policeman. He has spoken to us–through creation, history, our consciences, the coming of Jesus Christ, and especially through the Bible.” Had any of them read the Bible? I inquired. They hadn’t.
The lop-sided conversation continued until we were called to gather our possessions for disembarking. Little progress seemed to be made, but eternity will tell. I endeavored to simply share the gospel with them, but I sensed they were determined to go on aknowing the God who loved them and had spoken to them through His Word.
Yet, tragic though it was, the question that haunts me still is this: How well do I know God? Is He a stranger, even to His own? His matchless Book lies waiting, a great unexplored frontier inviting pioneers to scale its heights, plumb its depths, and discover the God who longs to reveal Himself to us.