We’re all born with open eyes, though many of us willingly and even involuntarily close them. Pain, offense, anger, trauma are just a few of the reasons why people do this. Those negative emotions and experiences have a tendency to form a filter that we may then begin to see through. This filter obstructs our view, conceals truth, distorts reality.

So many of us adopt belief systems based off of how we feel. People who have been hurt by other Christians or even churches will choose a different path as a result of their anger and pain. Others don’t like certain things the Bible says, and they’ll choose a different path based off of that.

The truth is though, if someone were to tell me the sky is blue and then proceed to punch me in the face, I would still believe what they said about the sky being blue. I might not like the fact that I agree with them, but it wouldn’t make it any less true to me. Why? Because I can see the sky for myself, and it is in fact blue.

On the other side of the coin, though, there are people who choose to follow God simply because they want God to be real or they like the idea of Heaven. Of course it makes sense that what we hope for would factor into our beliefs, but it’s important that our faith is grounded in truth.

God gives us an abundance of truth all around us. Besides fulfilled Biblical prophecies, all the people that died a brutal death for claiming to have witnessed the resurrection of Jesus, and the personal revelation Jesus Himself reveals to those that seek Him, I’ll leave you with this: A piece of artwork cannot create itself; it must have an artist. There’s beauty and order that surrounds us. All the conditions of this finely tuned universe are just right for us to even be able to exist.

It’s easy for a child to have faith in God because their logic is very simple, and they aren’t yet tainted by the pains of the world. Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

The next time you take in the beauty of a sunset, I hope that you can see it with open eyes. I hope that for a moment you can forget about everything from your past and just ask yourself what you truly believe in the present moment. Can you honestly, objectively claim you believe that sunset just came to be all on its own? God’s presence and God’s glory is all around us; all we have to do is open our eyes.