Your Dying Spouse 258 - Why I Believe {FMF}

Back again with Five Minute Friday, the keyword-driven timed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung. Please visit for some really wonderful writing!

Once again, illness forces me to write this ahead of time, and I ask your pardon. I will try to edit in the week's word when it's revealed.

(It's MIDDLE.)

And so...

Nights are getting hard. There's no remotely comfortable position,and I'm awake a lot. The alternative is an eerie doze filled with vivid nightmares. Yee-ha.

I'll admit it can be scary...and years ago, when I wondered how I would cope with facing death-by-illness, my biggest fear was facing the fear of death.

But the thing is, I'm not afraid of dying, because I believe in God. And yet...I've never had the 'personal relationship with God'. I with I did, but one has to do with that which one has. Kind of a middle path between experience and blind hope.

And what I have, like any good Vulcan, is logic. (If you'd like to visit my post on How To be A Vulcan, I'd be honoured.)

Doesn't sound very comforting, eh? But really, it is. When the black times come at three in the morning, when is this all there is? comes creeping into my mind, here is that to which my faith is pinned:

• Evidence of a Creator is found in the staggering odds against the 'natural' formation of even the simplest form of life. Given that there are about two thousand enzymes which form life's 'building blocks', the chances of obtaining all of them in a random trial is 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power, according to Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe. That's 40,000 zeros. God is the only remotely reasonable option.
• Archaeology has proven much of what is found in the New Testament, and is giving increasing support to the veracity of the Old Testament. Sites are as described, and individuals are increasingly shown to have lived when and where the Bible said they did.
• Jesus' ministry is corroborated by outside sources, such as Flavius Josephus.
• As C.S. Lewis so famously pointed out, Jesus' claim of divinity meant that He was either mad, or telling the truth, and there is no evidence of madness in anything He was recorded as saying. He speaks with an authoritative and shrewd voice, with occasional touches of sly humour. 
• His followers are likewise not described as those who would follow a lunatic, given that their discipleship put them on a collision course with the possibility of a singularly unpleasant death, as they would have been considered blasphemers by the religious authorities.
• Jesus' death and resurrection can be assumed to be true by the behaviour of the Apostles. If Jesus had died and not risen, there would have been no reason to continue following Him unto death. Preaching what one knows to be a lie, knowing that one's own ending would be bad, is madness, and as mentioned the Apostles were clearly not crazy.
• Paul's behaviour supports this. His travels and writings show him to be nothing if not rational, and one has to believe his experience on the road to Damascus. It had to be real; an hallucination would have left any sane man doubting the experience, however vivid it was, and that would have shown up in his letters.

There's more, but my time is up.

The only rational conclusion I can draw is that there is a God, and He lived as a man two thousand years ago. He came to earth for the reason He stated - to save our souls - and died so that we could live.

Not believing would simply be...wait for it...illogical.

The musical theme is from the film 13 Hours...

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

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