This post is about personhood and delineation. As I often say, we are all born kicking and screaming; not just in the delivery room but in the spirit. When I personally hear a militant atheist make accusations against God and ask the big WHY, I hear a baby crying. This is not to be dismissive, it’s the truth as I know it, based off of the preceding sentences. What else is true is that it’s a fair question and one with no chance of being answered outside of the Church. Furthermore, another truth is that the Adam and Eve narrative makes no literary sense, but as I believe it, it’s written in a way that will make sense to anyone who *wants to believe it. Like everything else in the Bible, it’s a barometer of where a person’s heart is, or their affections.

To spend a bit more time on the narrative, many outside of the Church would say that the woman gets the blame for sin and once again, the patriarchy rears its ugly head. But from inside of the Church it’s understood that the fall of man didn’t occur until the man bit the apple. In other words, a woman should feel safe to make a mistake knowing her husband will cover her and when a man makes a mistake his safety comes from God (of course the woman has her own relationship with God). This restores order to God’s original design but to offshoot towards a secularist’s question(s), a conversation could begin as to why the Church is so concerned with family; it’s the answer to the ‘men have feelings too’ movement.

Of course they do. But in the secular construct men are wondering why their women don’t comfort their feelings when they were never meant to provide the kind of comfort they’re talking about. This is all before we get to what is known as alternative families, but even those are surface level ‘solutions’ which do not address the core cause. It’s like being sick and putting on a band-aid. In God’s design, He is the head of the man, man the head of the family (and beneath these are beast then devil, for context). In other words, I agree with God that man should not be the boss as we see what happens when he feels that he is (the patriarchy indictment).

We do have to respect each other’s beliefs but my prayer is that I did a decent job to scratch the surface of the iceberg that whets a secularist’s appetite towards piquing their interest in to giving the Gospel a chance. Maybe not single handedly, but I believe I put forth the start of an answer to at least the one problem and yet there will be push-back which is attributed to things-unseen, which is why we are asked to just believe (back to the garden narrative). In this respect it is always important to ask where a person’s heart is and this is unknowable without Jesus.

Back to fair questions. Literally any question a person can have before receiving Christ is fair. What exactly are we doing down here? Where is God? Is he Evil? The truth is that Satan’s original crime was calling God evil (a liar). We believed him, and still he calls Him a liar to this day. This is a large part (I try never to use ‘all’ when talking about God) of our salvation and rescue. I believe God is more than fair to allow us to come of our own free will because if he made you come then he’d be holding you captive which he definitely does not do; it would be like a forced marriage. The big miss for militant atheists is that they forget about Satan during their accusations because he is easier to write off in their mind. But if they actually wanted to believe they would understand that this is impossible especially considering he was the impetus of the separation which causes the confusion in the first place. And yet still the secular world says “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist”. Full disclaimer, I spent at least 3 years as a militant atheist. I would love to say ‘go figure’ but the situation is too consequential.

It may be due to how difficult it is to pivot from God to The Devil in conversation unless you were in Church or you were writing a comedy of sorts. But what gets revealed in this process? You don’t ask the Devil why for countless reasons, but asking God ‘why’ even when you don’t believe speaks to the yearning inside of you that your Father put there which is the baby crying in my belief. What is not understood is that it is worse to acknowledge God and then try to indict or disprove Him. Even if you disregard the subjective nature of belief (i.e., mine Vs. yours), what they don’t understand that any god or God desires to live inside of a human being (there is no one alive that can say succinctly who or what we are) and when I say god, this is whatever you want it to be, whether or not you believe there is a spirit attached to it. For all of His power if one would simply understand that this God is Good, it changes everything.

Even believers rejoice at this because He allows us to develop a healthy fear of him and during this process when we remember that He is good it is all the reason to jump up and praise(!!!). Fair is fair and again; any believer will tell you that there is a difference between the written Word and The Word (Jesus) and that The Word is alive (Jesus is The Word) and we experience this through what is known as the Rhema word (the lived result and direction of the teachings of Jesus, which explains the inner dynamic of the written word as though someone was there speaking).

These words are for anyone moving towards God: if you are just curious, disregard theology when you read the Bible (there are enough curious disagreements throughout anthropology) but He the person of God will reveal the answers you are seeking which will never be found in Theology. In other words, give Him a chance when you read in that read it to believe; your disbelief will not come back unless you want it to. Belief in this Word is believing that whatever is there is meant to be there (worldwide) because you believe that God is the final authority.

In fact, you can consider that the Bible was written over about 1500 years and any believer will tell you from beginning to end the book is talking about the same person. This is generally not accomplished from one work (movie, book, etc.) to its sequel very well, even with Deus Ex Machina or ‘plot armor’. In these fictional works the subject reacts to the world around him but in the Bible the world reacts to Him. Once again this happens over 1500 years and these comparative works happen over a few decades or even a few hundred years, good luck having the original Robinhood be the same as a current version (because he has to react to the world as it is now).

The (very) long story short is that rather than seeking answers it behooves us to seek a person.

So here is the big SAY YES moment: just say yes. Yes because it is not a mistake that among the things Jesus is most known for is healing the blind; a person cannot know the truth unless it is revealed (as one believes). Just about every Christian can describe not expecting their life to be as different as it has since become after accepting Christ. To refer to the title of this post, it’s not only God that answers, but God is the one that tells the truth.

Until next time, take care.

Gregory Longmore, LMHC is an online-only Christian Professional Mental Health therapist based in NYC.