Finding God

By Bill Glenn

Ideas matter.

What you believe affects everything you do. It influences how you think and talk, what you value and want, who you view as a role model, where you spend your time, how you treat others. It determines who you become in life....and where you live after death.

I was raised by a Christian mother and regularly attended worship services as a child. I was baptized when I was 10. But during my secular college experience, I was confronted with ideas that challenged my religious beliefs. Some of my intelligent and educated professors said materialistic chance had displaced God as the creator of all things.

My mom loved me and I didn't think she would intentionally lie to me, but she had never even been to college! As much as I loved her, nobody wants to be duped. I wanted and needed to know the truth. So I spent some agonizing years weighing the evidence concerning God and Christianity, until finally a number of simple but far-reaching revelations became obvious to me.

I eventually arrived at the unwavering conclusion that those accomplished but misguided professors were simply wrong. And I came to recognize evolution as a pseudoscience, long on bluster but short on facts.

Finding God begins by giving you a solid foundation for belief in an amazing, loving, eternal God. (And you don't have to take my word for it. Some of the world's greatest minds, past and present, provide strong support for that belief.) Then it adds several firm principles to strengthen your faith.

Whether you look far out into the cosmos or peer deep inside the cell, God is there. Read...and believe!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638749295

Book preview

cover.jpg

Finding God

Bill Glenn

ISBN 978-1-63874-928-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63874-929-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Bill Glenn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Introduction

On August 24, 2014, I had the honor of baptizing my granddaughter Cadence. She had talked about getting baptized for some time, occasionally mentioning it to her mother, Amber, and asking questions about it. Amber was already a born again Christian. She had actually been baptized twice, choosing to take that step a second time in her twenties because she had been baptized as a child, and she wasn’t sure she fully understood what she was doing the first time.

Wanting to make sure Cadence understood the importance of the event, Amber waited until she thought Cadence truly comprehended the purpose of baptism. When Amber was convinced, and Cadence was sure she was ready, Amber asked me if I would like to baptize her. I eagerly accepted the invitation!

I had baptized two people before. The first was a lady I dated. She had been exposed to Christianity early in life but, for reasons of her own, had decided not to accept Jesus as her savior during those formative years. During our courtship, God was a frequent subject of conversation. We regularly prayed together in the morning. I arrived early for work and called her before my workday began. She would be in some stage of preparing for the day, but would allow me to interrupt her so we could catch up with one another, then talk to God about things that were on our individual and collective minds.

After some months of dating, she started reading the Bible on her own and began attending worship with me. Soon afterward, she brought up the subject of baptism. We studied it for a while, and she decided she wanted to be baptized for the forgiveness of her sins (Acts 2:38 and Acts 22:16) and to put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). That was a wonderful experience. I loved watching God’s Spirit grow in her to the point that she was excited to become a disciple of Jesus and live for his glory.

The second person I was blessed to baptize was my younger daughter, Misty. Like Amber, Misty grew up going to church; however, her path to God took a different route. She was a good child. She wasn’t rebellious or difficult. Misty was nine when my ex-wife left me. She was 11 when the divorce was finalized. That experience may have affected her relationship with God and her spiritual development. Many prayers were said on her behalf. Occasionally, Amber and I had light-hearted discussions with her concerning God, Jesus, the Bible, and spiritual matters in general. She never seemed offended by the conversations, but she never seemed really interested in them either.

I had given her a book or two over the years, hoping something in one of them would spark a genuine interest, but nothing did. Until she read Heaven is for Real. I don’t know why that book spoke to her in a way nothing else had, but I’m grateful that God found the door to her heart. After reading it herself, she asked me to read it, and we discussed it in some detail. She asked some probing questions about Christianity and we shared some Bible study. She even read some Christian apologetic material that answered some common secular questions. A few weeks after our initial discussion, she said she wanted to be baptized. Praise God! On October 7, 2012, I had the great joy of watching my daughter be born again.

Amber experienced the agony of divorce for a second time after her three children were born. When the four of them moved in with me, Courtney was three, Cadence was two, and Tristen was one. The transition wasn’t without its trials, but we made it work, with help from family and friends.

As you might expect, Amber took pains to introduce her children to their heavenly Father. Before they had any awareness of their surroundings, each one of them was a familiar face in worship services. Cadence had seen baptisms, and had expressed a normal curiosity in them. She came to understand the concept of sin, to realize that she had committed sins herself, and that Jesus had died to pay for the sins of those who chose to accept his sacrifice and be buried with him in baptism (Matt. 28:19; Rom. 6:3–4; 1 Cor. 15:3; Col. 2:12). She gradually got more and more convinced of her need to be baptized (or babatized, as she called it), and expressed a direct desire to do so.

Normally, all three kids would attend the children’s worship service of the congregation we attended, but on the morning of the baptism Cadence stayed in the regular worship service. Family members were there to watch, which was great except that she was too short to be seen from the auditorium. Fortunately, I had a bird’s-eye view! She confessed her faith that Jesus is the Son of God, and she was baptized…immersed into the water as a sinful worldly girl, and taken out of the water as a spotless child of God.

As was typical in the congregation where it occurred, by the time we emerged from our respective dressing rooms, the church members were assembled in a circle that bulged out of the main auditorium and into the foyer. We held hands and prayed for God’s new daughter, and she was surrounded by a host of well-wishers.

As we celebrated that afternoon in a local Italian restaurant, Cadence’s journey had just begun. Soon, she would return home and face the same irritants that had confronted her before. She would struggle with the same math problems and be challenged in her faith by the same television programs. The well-wishers of that morning would have their own struggles to deal with, and wouldn’t always be around to help. Cadence needed some good soil to grow in, or risk being one of the casualties Jesus taught about in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1–23).

The challenge was clear: help Cadence’s young faith grow. Provide her with the nourishment she needed as a babe in Christ to allow for her development into a mature Christian. From the beginning, the project also encompassed Courtney and Tristen. If the idea was sparked by Cadence, it was also fed by the desire to help her siblings grow spiritually.

I looked for some pre-existing devotional materials, and found them to be lacking in some way or another: too easy or too hard, overly structured or lacking in substance. So I decided to devise a devotional format for our own use. I knew their habits, their likes and dislikes, and the activities that were likely to hold their attention. For example, they loved being asked questions so they could test their knowledge (and compete with their siblings).

Of course, they had varying personalities and preferences, so despite intimate knowledge of my students, there were challenges in creating the right mix of material. Even when I found something that worked, the mix needed tweaking as the kids grew, or their worldly environments changed. Despite those adjustments, a few things remained consistent: we prayed, we read the Bible and acknowledged it as God’s word, and we memorized simple principles that focused our minds on what God wants us to know.

Although I believe memorizing Bible verses is beneficial and important, some concepts are not concisely captured in one or two verses. Those concepts can be taught more directly through principles that are derived from biblical truths. My first book, Growing Toward God, was founded on the principles I started teaching the kids shortly after Cadence’s baptism. Finding God is an extension and revision of that book.

While Growing Toward God was being published, a friend in my home congregation said she would like me to write another book directed at those who are not yet Christians. Because evolutionary teaching led to my first real spiritual struggle, I was already thinking about writing a second book to point out the fallacies of evolutionary theory, so I decided to combine the two ideas into this book. Chapters 8–20 primarily hold the information from Growing Toward God, although the text has been expanded and massaged. Chapters 1–7 and 21 contain new information.

Ideas matter. What we think affects our lives, the lives of our family members and friends, even the lives of those we meet in passing. The thoughts in this book reflect my own walk with God. They are ideas that were important to me as that relationship grew. Since you are reading this, I suspect you are either looking for God, or are seeking to grow in your connection with Him. Thank you for allowing me to share in that journey.

I pray this book will strengthen your relationship with the incomparable, awe-inspiring God of the universe.

Be blessed, and be a blessing!

1

There is a God.

In 1837, Hans Christian Andersen published a short story named The Emperor’s New Clothes. The story features a vain emperor who was more interested in his attire than his kingdom. In fact, the emperor spent all of his money on clothes and he had a different suit for each hour of the day. He didn’t care at all about his subjects, his soldiers, or his territory, except for the opportunities they gave him for displaying his outfits.

One day, two men who called themselves weavers entered his kingdom. The two men claimed they could weave garments that had a special property: the clothes they made were invisible to anyone who was unfit for the office he held, or to anyone who was exceptionally simple in character. The emperor was always anxious to add to his already abundant wardrobe, and he was excited about the prospect of being able to identify those who were foolish or unworthy of their positions. He immediately ordered a suit, and gave the men a lot of money to begin their work.

As might be clear already from their outrageous claims, the two men were not weavers at all, but were con men who were simply taking advantage of the emperor’s vanity and obsession for fashion. They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread to sew the garments, but they put those items in their baggage. Then, they pretended to work furiously at their task.

After a short time, the emperor began to wonder how his clothes were coming along. He decided to send a faithful old minister to check on the progress, specifically because the emperor knew him to be a man of good sense who was very well suited for his office.

The minister dutifully visited the men. He strained his eyes hard to catch any glimpse of material on the looms, but after carefully examining them, he could see nothing of the suit…because there was nothing to see. He knew the claims of the so-called weavers, and he was unwilling to be considered unfit or simple, so he acted like he saw the various pieces of the suit and complimented the men on their masterful work. The imposters asked for more silk and gold so they could complete their work, and they packed this away with what they had received earlier.

They continued to carry on their make-believe work as feverishly as ever, cutting imaginary material, sewing with non-existent thread, and creating…well…nothing. Some time later, the emperor sent another officer of his court to check on his new clothes. This officer, like the first, saw nothing, but he believed the claims of the charlatans more than his own senses. Not wanting to be judged as foolish or unworthy of his job, he also praised the empty air and reported to the emperor that the garments were extraordinarily magnificent.

Finally, the emperor could restrain himself no longer and went to see the work for himself. Accompanied by some selected officers of his court, he arrived to find the con men working more diligently than ever over the empty looms. After straining their eyes to no avail and considering their individual options, the emperor and everyone with him raved about the wonderful suit that didn’t exist. The emperor even honored the scoundrels for their exquisite work.

The emperor wanted to wear his new clothes in a procession through town, so he took off his real clothes and pretended to put on the non-existent ones, then he started his walk. The townspeople were well aware of the claims made about the suit, so just as everyone else had done, they marveled at the material and the craftsmanship of the new garments.

Listening to all the glowing praise as it cascaded down the path of the procession, a little boy patiently waited until he could see for himself what everyone was talking about. When the emperor came into view, he exclaimed, But the emperor has nothing at all on! The boy’s father initially brushed off the outburst as childish innocence, but others gradually began to whisper the same thing.

Soon, everyone was willing to admit what they had all thought, but had been too afraid to acknowledge. The so-called weavers were liars and cheats, the emperor and his counselors had been deceived, and the ruler was now standing naked for all to see.

_______________________________

Most people think of science as a careful, unbiased search for the truth. But, unfortunately, that is not always the case. Just as the emperor was only interested in clothes and refused to be involved in other matters, some scientists today are only interested in naturalistic explanations of the things that surround us.

Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule. Rule No. 1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural.(¹) (Richard Dickerson, biochemist)

Although I’m very surprised to read that a biochemist considers science to be a game, I have no problem with science seeking how far, and to what extent, the universe can be explained based on purely physical and material causes. That focus helps us discover things that would otherwise be relegated to the realms of superstition and mysticism. God made the universe with laws that can be understood, and we should understand them to the best of our ability. But I do have a problem with the way the game is actually played.

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.(²) (Richard Lewontin, biologist and geneticist)

As Lewontin admits, some scientists approach their work in a way that completely eliminates the possibility of the supernatural, the divine, God.

There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation – that life arose from non-living matter – was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God.(³) (George Wald, Nobel Prize winning biochemist)

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).(⁴) (Richard Dawkins, biologist)

Based on what you’ve read so far, does science sound like it is always a careful, unbiased search for the truth?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do not believe in evolution. (When I write about evolution in this book, I’m referring to macroevolution, the unproven idea that one species evolved into another until we have the variety of life we see today. I am not referring to microevolution, which is an observable process that involves minor changes that occur within a given species.) Given Dawkins’ scathing indictment of my mental capacities, I think it’s fair to let you know that right up front. However, I hope you don’t stop reading at this point, because I think you will soon learn that his assessment is unfair and unfounded.

Any science that refuses to accept the possibility of anything outside of materialism immediately limits itself to a specific realm.

Logicians have a term: inference to the best explanation. This means you have a body of data to be explained, and then you have a pool of live options or various explanations for that data. You need to choose which explanation from that pool would, if true, best explain the observed data. Some skeptics, however, will not allow supernatural explanations even to be in the pool of live options. Consequently, if there is no natural explanation for an event, they’re simply left with ignorance. That’s prejudice.(⁵) (William Lane Craig, professor of philosophy)

Science is not a game, and scientists should follow the physical evidence wherever it leads, with no artificial restrictions.(⁶) (Michael Behe, biochemist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture)

Pretend for a moment that an alien came to earth and asked you to tell him all about life here, with one restriction. He only wants to know about those things he can experience with his own senses, which we will assume are the same as our senses. You could explain the things he could see around him, allow him to touch the items in his environment, invite him to smell the objects that have a scent, give him a taste of various foods, and let him hear the sounds that make up our world. He would learn a lot, but the picture would be incomplete.

You would not, for example, be able to explain our history. You would not be allowed to introduce him to the concepts of love, hate, anger, or any other emotion. You wouldn’t be able to describe the different personalities we possess, or discuss the strength of individual will. You would be forbidden from talking about faith, hope and trust.

The alien would learn many facts. He would walk away with a framework that defines some aspects of human existence – something akin to the border of a puzzle. But he would miss much of the detail inside that border. His restriction would limit his examination, his knowledge, and his understanding. Any science that binds itself with such