I occasionally spend some time thinking about my faith in God, Jesus, the Bible, and eternal life in heaven. I was raised going to church, hearing sermons, being taught weekly about what I now believe, so sometimes I wonder if what I believe that controls almost all of my life is really true. Because I want assurance that what I believe is true I think about some things that will logically reinforce my belief system. Romans 1:15-18 suggests that life and things that we observe in life experiences will bear witness to God. Over the years of having these “ponderings” I have written the results or conclusions that I arrive at in my journal, and to this point I have collected an even dozen of these “reasons” why my faith is logical. Faith isn’t really faith if it is totally logical, I understand that, but it looks like there is logical support. The Bible says that if we seek God that He will meet us half way. That expression “half way” is just that, an expression, I suspect that in reality that God meets us about 99% of the way.

One of the these dozen entries in my journal is entitled, “Justice”. This thought process wasn’t original with me, but was prompted by the book, “Mere Christianity” written by CS Lewis who as an agnostic began his journey towards faith in Christ by observing that people all have a sense of “right and wrong”, in every culture, in every era, this sense is there. His conclusion was that for that to exist in us there must be a God who put it in us. He concluded that evolution couldn’t have produced that universal inner sense of “right and wrong”, only a higher power who was Himself “good”. This value system about what is “right and wrong” may differ, but it is still there. Each of my eight kids expressed this inner sense at a very early age by the phrase, “that isn’t fair”! Along with the inner belief that certain acts are right and others are wrong, is the belief that wrong behavior deserves consequences and right behavior deserves reward. The belief in and the desire for reward and consequence is called “justice”.

During these times of very heated discussions about President Trump, the Coronavirus, Govenors, Democrats, etc most people are expressing opinions on what they believe is right, best, good, moral as opposed to wrong, bad, ugly, and immoral. The opinions or definitions of what is right and what is wrong obviously differ, but the desire for justice seems to be there in most people. Our beliefs in what is right and what is wrong can be “infected” by selfishness, painful experiences in our past, information that we have been taught, but it is still there.

Because of my belief that almost all people are driven by a desire for “justice”, one of my personal character goals is to “accept” people in spite of their views and opinions, and to treat them with dignity and respect even if we are far apart in our definitions of what is best and what is not so good. That means I can discuss, even debate, but not attack, belittle, or insult them. Sometimes I achieve my goal and sometimes I fail, but I do think I am getting closer to accomplishing what I believe is “right”.