How to come to faith? I ...

Tuesday, July 21, 2009. How do I come to faith in Jesus? I want to take some days this week to think about this topic. Lets think you are my friend. We somehow got into a discussion about this. What is faith about? Why do you believe? How do I come to faith? Thats what I want to try. I want to search for the way to faith. How can it happen?

The first thing I would talk about is that is might not be the most simple thing to come to faith. Perhaps you have heard this advice: just believe. And you think: I cannot just believe. There are too many things not plausible. Too many things unclear. Too many things which I do not understand. How can I “just believe”?

There are different ways to faith. Some people can just believe. That is perfectly ok. Let us make this very clear. If someone can just believe, he is extremely lucky! He is in fact blessed. Since faith in God cannot be worked into, it cannot be earned, it cannot be proven. In the end there is at least some element in it which is “just belief”. Faith has something of this. But that is not the end of the story!

When I was younger I could not “just believe”. In fact, there were many questions which turned up. Many questions which were waiting to be answered. But there were not many to answer. Not many things getting clear. In official church meetings I did not get the answers which I was looking for. So I abandoned to go to church. I went occasionally, but not on a regular basis. I did not have the trust that I would find God there, but I wanted to know more! I do not say that you cannot find God in church - on the contrary. He is there with people who believe in him, with people who search him. Definitely he is there. But still it can happen that your ears are not prepared enough, that you need a different approach, that you need more interaction to find him.

I started to find God when several factors came together. Again, that is not a rule I am trying to establish. It is just a personal history. For me it was like that - and since I was a child of our modern world, I think that my problems are your problems, that the struggle which I had to understand faith is also to some extent your struggle. We will talk about this over the next days in more detail. Today let me just state some faith I have: there are many ways to come to faith in Jesus. There are many large or little things which can happen which open your ears and your eyes and, suddenly, you see. Just start to search, at the beginning. Start to search him consciously, and tell him. Say to the eternal God: I want to know you! I want to get to know you, God! Start to pray … [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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