Because the Butterfly
If you were to ask me why I believe I would counter with a
question of my own. Have you ever seen a butterfly in flight? Of course you
have. Everybody has. But have you ever genuinely watched? I watched a butterfly
flit and flutter across a parking lot one afternoon and it was clear to me that
God was real. Here’s a creature that weighs less than a tissue and
aerodynamically has no right to stay aloft. Yet as the breeze blows to and fro
the butterfly is unaffected. It is here and it wants to go there. And it does
it.
Why do I believe? Because I’ve seen a butterfly, impervious
to the breeze, go where it wishes. I believe because I have met people who
should be dead. I believe because
everyday around this earth another life begins in another womb. I believe
because every day babies are born. I believe because if the earth was slightly
off access, if the sun was just a little farther away or closer, if the moon
wasn’t in lockstep, nothing would be living on this sphere. I believe because
an airplane can stay aloft. I believe because a single kernel of corn planted
today will provide enough to plant an entire field next season.
Nietzsche once said, “I think therefore I am,” in order to
prove his own existence. I would posit that, “I am, therefore God exists.” Is
that a simplification? Of course. Could somebody smarter than me who believes
differently pick that argument apart? Sure. Could somebody smarter than that
person, who agrees with me pick apart their argument? Yep. It can go on like
that ad nauseam. But the fact that I am here, alive, breathing, tells me that
God exists.
Why do I believe? Because a faith that started thousands of
years ago with a man claiming deity continues to thrive today. Its founder died
and was witnessed alive 3 days later… a fact that would be easily disapproved
and should have resulted in a fringe cult that was snuffed out in no more than
a generation at most. Yet 2000 plus years later that faith exists and thrives.
Not because it’s a salve for the wounds of the weak minded but because it is,
in fact, true. It could not and should not have survived otherwise.
Has this faith been lived out through history as it should?
Of course not, but that’s the exact reason I believe. It’s a faith that has not
done what it should have yet it still is alive and doing some good in a broken
world.
I believe that God is real for many reasons. I believe because I am, to paraphrase the
philosopher. I believe because today a butterfly will ignore the physical world
around it and fly from one blossom to the next.