Find Yourself First

For anyone trying to get anywhere, the first step is knowing where you are.

This might seem intuitive, but hear me out. I think for those who have never had to navigate by map, the significance might be harder to grasp.  Think about it this way. There was a time, believe it or not, when most people lacked access to the GPS systems that we take for granted. That era took place roughly between the dawn of creation and twenty-five years ago.

For those who recall traveling in those ancient times, whether to another state or just a few towns over, you might remember the atlas. The roadmap. You will probably remember flipping pages, folding it over, maybe unfolding it again because what you needed wasn’t even visible. Tracing around with your finger until you figured out, at last, your current location.

If you were in the scouts or the military, or if you’re a hunter or an outdoor enthusiast, you have likely navigated cross country with a map and compass. This is an even bigger challenge in some ways, but the first step remains the same: find yourself. Figure out where you are right now, or you may never get to where you need to be.

I want to propose that the same principle applies in our approach to faith and Scripture. It may not be as big of an obstacle for everyone; some people just seem to have a better idea of where they are at any given time, whether navigating life or navigating the world. It doesn’t remove the requirement, though, and for many of us that first step takes some time and effort.

Unlike in land navigation, where you have terrain to associate with – that mountain, or this river, or an intersection of roads – we must identify far less tangible points to orient ourselves by if we want to find the truth. I’m hoping to help by offering a few positions that I’ve experienced or observed over the years as a skeptic and an atheist, and as a leader, counselor, and compulsive observer of people. If it so happens that you are close to one of these, great. Hopefully you can use it to orient yourself and get back on track. If you’re not, that’s okay too. If you find yourself somewhere far off from what I write about, so be it; it’s enough that you take the time to reflect, with brutal honesty, on where you are and what holds you back. Once you do that, you’ll be ready to move forward.

What I can’t do today is provide all the answers. Many of them I just don’t know. And while I plan to expand on all of this eventually, that time isn’t now. For now, I will offer an overview and a few suggestions based on my own personal experience. May the Lord give us wisdom.

Are you a skeptic?

This can come in multiple forms, but I’ll narrow it down to what I think are two primary categories: those who are skeptical of Scripture, and those who are skeptical of God.

Some people doubt the credibility, the historicity, or the accuracy of the Bible itself. They’ve been told that it isn’t consistent, that it contradicts, that it’s a fabrication of man; whatever the case, they look at the Bible and see a fraud. This seems to me to be the most prevalent form of skepticism, or at least launch point for skeptical arguments, that I have seen. It was my position for quite a while. It is also, and let me be completely frank with you here, nonsense.

This may have been a valid position decades ago, in a time before almost all the information in the world had reached our fingertips. It just isn’t, anymore. In less time than it takes to play a game of checkers you can correct what is, at the end of the day, simple ignorance. There is just no reason for anyone who has any desire to engage in a good-faith evaluation to doubt the consistency and accuracy of the Bible. I don’t mean to sound harsh, and I don’t seek to offend anyone, but hear me: if someone were to demand that you explain why water is wet before they heed a warning about drowning, you would rightly consider them a fool.

If this has been your position, I sincerely believe that you have been misled. I say this having been there, and having also done the misleading. I get it. My recommendation is that you start outside of Bible to fix it. There are numerous webpages dedicated to illustrating the credibility of Scripture. You can also grab a book like More Than a Carpenter orThe Case for Christ, both of which do a fantastic job of presenting the facts. I would begin with the following questions, though you will find that the evidence stacks up overwhelmingly.

• What is your standard for an acceptable degree of supporting documentation?
• What and how many historical sources were used to create the Bibles we have today?
• What other documents or texts do you believe are unquestionably reliable?
• How well-supported are they?
• Have you ever actually investigated the so-called ‘contradictions’ in the text?
• Have you ever actually investigated the methodology behind Bible translations?
• How many times has the Bible been proven correct by modern discoveries?
• How many times have similar discoveries made a liar of the Bible?

The reality is you can refute most of the challenges of this sort with less effort than it takes to assemble a package from Amazon. I think with just a bit of digging, you will very quickly find that what you have been told or believed is simply not true. I hope this allows you to take a fresh look at the truth of things.

For those who are skeptical of the existence of God or the supernatural, the problem is more complicated. They are struggling with a philosophical problem that requires a philosophical answer, and very few of us are experts in philosophy. What I can tell you is that, as with the fact- and data-driven resources mentioned above, there are many works by authors such as C.S. Lewis that present the arguments far more ably than I could, especially in these few words.

If this is you, and you do not also struggle with the skepticism I mentioned earlier, here is how I would suggest approaching it with Scripture: start with the prophets. There are so many examples, but here are a few I have found to be particularly compelling and straightforward.

• Look into the destruction of Tyre as compared to the text found in Ezekial 26
• Look into the remarkable accuracy of the prophecies found in the book of Daniel
• Look at Isaiah 53, and the remarkable way it points to Jesus
• Look at Psalm 22 and the indisputable way it describes the crucifixion of Jesus

Most importantly, look at how many hundreds of years spans the divide between when they were predicted – and documented – and when these events occurred. I am sometimes floored at the mental gymnastics we are willing to go through to avoid concluding what is so obviously irrefutable. There is quite simply no way anyone accidentally got these things right. The only way to deny the implications here is to refute the credibility of the text itself, which was already addressed above.

There are so many beautiful, often subtle ways that Scripture ties together and reinforces the Divine nature of its assembly. Prophecy is more like a giant neon arrow in the sky; it points straight to God and seems clearly sufficient to eradicate all doubt. I can’t help but appreciate how we had answers to the philosophical debates on His existence long before we were foolish enough to question it.

Are you angry?

This is a hard one. There are so many people out there who have been hurt by the world, and in so many ways. Abuse is a real thing, and so are flawed people acting as poor representatives of something that should be beautiful and unquestionably right. Hypocrites abound, and they are not always quiet about it. I will speak an uncomfortable truth, here. Whether misguided or truly wicked, bad Christians – or at least those that claim the name of Christ – are responsible for more people turning away than we want to admit. And when they turn, they go hard. This was evident to me even before I believed, and nothing has changed in my evaluation.

If this is you, I am sorry. I truly am.

I am no stranger to the harsh reality that is our legacy on this world. It’s disheartening to see how foolishly hypocritical, carelessly malicious, or even deliberately evil people can be; I can only imagine how much worse this gets when the offense comes from someone who represents a faith you might now mistrust. Unfortunately, I cannot take away your scar tissue. I can’t even take away my own. Chances are, we’ll always have it. What matters more, I think, is that we recognize it.

All too often there is a deep anger buried beneath that caustic, biting skepticism that people swing about like a weapon. And what about that friend who scoffs at the mere idea that God could ever be a loving father? Ask them about their relationship with their parents, and I bet you will find pain. My point is this. While skepticism and apathy are the more visible fruit, I suspect that hurt and pain are more often the root.

What we should not do is blame the church for the people. What we cannot do is mistake human fault for God’s failure. If we are lost and can’t seem to figure out why, we need to sit still and have uncomfortable conversations with ourselves. If we are willing to open closets and look under the bed for the monsters we’ve buried and long forgotten about, we might also discover what has truly been holding us back. It may not be enough to get us where we need to be, but it just might be enough to find the trail and get moving again.

Are you your own God?

We want to sin.

This is objectively true. Accept, for the sake of argument, that even without the spiritual or Christian connotation, sin is still a useful word to categorize behaviors. I think you can follow me there. Let’s acknowledge that sin describes things like selfishness, lust, greed, envy, sexual depravity, dishonesty, murder, and a host of other similar and predictable traits.

I will assume you agree in principle that this list generally describes things we ought not do. The fact that most people everywhere would agree that most of the things on this list are poor behaviors indicates that this isn’t an outrageous claim, either. We might see deviation in specific behaviors that some people decide don’t belong, I suppose. One might agree with everything except the lust, while another thinks envy isn’t all that bad. Quite a few might roll their eyes at the words ‘sexual depravity’, mostly because society has convinced us any attempt at corralling the perfectly healthy desires that we feel is the equivalent of spiritual slavery. Even where we disagree, though, we tend to disagree on scale more often than not. Of course, too much of something is never good. We shouldn’t take that too far, however.

I think you can also follow me when I say that people everywhere do these things, on a spectrum ranging from occasionally and regretfully to excessively and unashamedly. This is what the Bible means when it says that people are slaves to sin. That we, when left to our own devices, will act according to our own desires. That this will result in us doing things that are on the list we already agreed we ought not do. Period. It is inescapable, as objectively true as the fact that your phone will eventually hit the ground if you throw it out of a window.

This is where so many of us are. We want to sin. We live in a world that is as full of temptation as we could ever want it to be, surrounded by a society that is deathly allergic to accountability. I could fill these pages with the myriad ways we justify our actions, and with all the words of encouragement we receive from a thoughtless and morally numb society urging us to live our lives in whatever way we see fit. What we have, then, is an environment that seems scientifically formulated to enable sin.

For some people, it is this. The desire to be their own God keeps them from finding their way. The purely human arrogance – the pride – that we are cursed with is what blinds us to the reality of things. When we find ways to justify our actions, knowing well in our hearts they are wrong, it is pride that blinds us. When we convince ourselves that our actions are blameless, it is pride that encourages us. And when we refuse to name sin because of the stain we think even speaking such a word in today’s culture will leave, it is pride that steals our courage.

Here is another harsh reality. This becomes much, much more difficult to do when you are confronted with the knowledge that what is right is clearly revealed in the teaching of God’s Word. It is for this reason and often this reason alone that so many will turn away from Jesus; because once you do, you can tell yourself the lie that what society sells you is true. That you are good enough as is.

I do not spend a tremendous amount of my time considering how to reach those who cannot see the blame in their own mirror. I think the best we can do is find ways to show them how they are being deceived, and to make clear to them that there is another path. The rest, I sincerely believe, is on them. This isn’t a matter of critical thought but personal conviction, and I pray that God might take a more direct hand in that one.

Finding Yourself

I hope I’ve given you something to consider today. I truly believe that the first step for many of us involves a brutally honest look in the mirror and a willingness to admit where we’ve been wrong. Not in terms of sin or repentance, although that will hopefully come. I mean the ability to raise our hand and acknowledge that we haven’t done our homework, or that we don’t have a good reason for the skepticism that fuels us. That we actually have very good reasons to believe what God has revealed to us. I mean the ability to recognize our emotions for what they are, set them aside for a time, and try to see the good news of Jesus Christ for what it is: a beautiful truth that will meet us where we are, save us if we let it, and completely transform our lives.