Is There a God?

Recently, I encountered a blog post where the blogger tried to give a proof that God does not exist, hence, I thought of coming up with this post.

Have you ever got to the point where you questioned whether God exists or not? I can relate with you if you have because I have. After reading my past posts, one might conclude that I have always been “religious” or a “Spiritual Person” as some of my readers commented. The fact is this: there was a point in my life where I doubted.

Before I continue, I want to ask how many of you believed in Santa, wholeheartedly, as a child – with all the reindeers and North Pole thing and stuff like that?

I asked because I sincerely believed in him when I was younger. I received gifts from him in my socks every Christmas. I have waited every Christmas Eve for him and watched the moon for a sign that he passed. When I turned eleven, I was disappointed to learn that “Santa” was my parents.

"I have waited every Christmas Eve for him and watched the moon for a sign that he passed."

Someone even told me that I was too old to believe in Santa and laughed at me. Since then, I considered everything like the Santa episode as childish. Even without intending it, even the stories I learned as a child, mostly bible stories, I also treated as childish. Yes, it was a careless and hasty generalization.

I got to the point that I considered believing in the existence of Heaven and Hell as childish. I even thought that they do not exist. I almost fell to the pit called atheism. I almost believed that when I die, I will cease to exist. Those days were dark for me. My life had no meaning and direction. I was very confused.

I lost the Supernatural outlook I had when I was a child. I believe every child has that Supernatural Outlook. No wonder Jesus had a special mention of children in the bible (C.f. Lk 18:15 -17; Mt. 19:13-15; Mk 10:13-16). It’s because when we grow older, we usually lose it, especially at these times where fantasies are appealing and scams are widely spread; it is hard to tell which one is telling the truth.

But like anyone who has gone through that state, I had a pivotal point in my life. One evening when I was a graduating student in college, I attended a testimonial dinner with the new CPA’s from Saint Louis University, the school where I studied. Almost every one of them mentioned prayer as one of the factors why they passed the board exams. One even said that she offered a short prayer for every item in the exams. That incident led me to ask "really?" So when it was my turn to take the board exams, I followed their advice. During my review, I went to mass, said a prayer before I sleep, and really surrendered myself to God. While taking the exams, I kept saying a little prayer in my mind. I’m glad I took the advice of that new CPA in the testimonial dinner. If I didn’t, I might have failed. I credit my passing of the board exam to God, because honestly, I did not feel like I’m the most deserving. It’s true that I studied up to 16 hours a day that time but I still felt like it was not enough.

I go back to my question, is there a God? Yes, definitely. My experience is enough proof for me. You might ask me, “But Divine, that’s your experience. My experience tells me that there is no God.” Well, every person has a different story of how he encountered or will encounter God. Yours will be different from mine. But I won’t argue with scientific proofs and the like. I will leave you instead a phrase that my mother repeatedly told me when I was in doubt. “Where reason ends, faith begins.”

Praying for you,

Divine

P.S. By the way, I was shocked recently when I learned that Santa was real! He is Saint Nicholas de Bari! Well, he might not have a long white beard and reindeers and does not live in the North Pole but, hey, he lived! (I don’t know how his image evolved to the present Santa). The tradition of gift giving during Christmas came from him. Isn’t that amazing?