More Than Awareness

While I can remember being aware of God at age seven or eight, it would be a big stretch of the truth to say that I believed in God back then.  Belief or faith is a big concept for a child.  At least it would have been for me.  Awareness is a better word.   My first thoughts of God were filled with images of this big guy peering over heaven's white clouds to see what I was doing.  In one hand He had this big black book and the other a pen to write down what I was doing.  As a child I had no sense of being in a relationship with God as relationships belong to the adult world and not to the world I knew as  a child.    I knew He was there, wherever there was, and that was enough when I was not yet ten years of age.

 

It was not faith or belief that guided me in my childhood search for God.  Looking back the theological concept which took hold of me before faith was love.  I grew up hearing that this God who was there somewhere loved me.  Not only did He love me, but He wanted me to love Him.  Love is what pushed me forward toward that moment when I would be able to say, "I believe in God" at some personal moment instead of inside the community moment of reciting "The Apostle's Creed."  I do not remember exactly when, but I do know that when I first believed in God it was the God who had revealed Himself in love.

For a long time now I have lived with the words, "I believe in God."  Of course, it is more than just a set of words.  To speak of belief speaks of dependence on Him to be who He has declared Himself to be.  It speaks of surrender to a will that trumps my will.  To affirm "I believe in God" is the fundamental building stones of my life.  Everything begins and ends with those words.  While I am still very much aware of His presence, He has become the One around whom my life turns.  I believe in God.  Those few words say everything about who I am.