This is a fundamental question, not so much because of the reference to God, but rather because of the idea of ‘reality’. Perhaps another way to phrase this question would be to ask, “What is reality?”

If God is not real, or any of the things that are asserted in this book are not real, then it would be a complete nonsense to believe in them. There is an abundance of fiction to be read, such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, but these stories are just that, fiction, and no one in their right mind actually suggests that they represent reality or should be believed as factual.

Western culture is heavily practical, mathematical and pragmatic; on the surface we have little time for anything that cannot be explained or cannot be arrived at by calculation. But then, in contrast to this rationalistic worldview, we may also seek to nurture our ‘spiritual side’ by entertaining one or more of the cornucopia of ‘spiritual’ concepts that are available – new age mysticism, astrology, etc. Just about everything is thought to be valid with the proviso that we are each free to choose what we want to believe, like a ‘pick and mix’, based on our individual inclinations. In spite of this freedom to choose things that are not provable, there remains an obstacle to belief in the God of the Bible; not because this is ‘other-worldly’, but because we struggle to subscribe to the idea of the definite, the concept that there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ beliefs.

Sometimes a horse is fitted with blinkers – a pair of small leather screens attached to the bridle that prevent the horse from seeing sideways and behind – that are intended to protect it from being startled. It is as though we ourselves are choosing to wear blinkers so that we can see only what is immediately in front of us. And yet we still sense that there are other things, things to the side or behind, that we cannot see. This sense of the ‘other’ is stressful to the rationalistic mindset. We look to remove this stress by denying the existence of the God who is there. Instead we accommodate our ‘spiritual side’ by seeking for truth and ‘reality’ in various forms of alternate spirituality, anything that we imagine that the blinkers might be obscuring. The point is that whilst belief in God is indeed ‘other worldly’, what we can discover about him is just as real as the tangible everyday things that we experience through our five senses. God may be outside of our everyday experience, but he is no less real for that.

We may fear that we could be startled if we take off our spiritual blinkers, but isn’t it worth the risk? My experience is that God is not in the business of frightening us; he will, however, amaze us with who he is, his love for us and what he has done for us.

If you struggle to believe in God, then I want to suggest that you consider doing a rationality check on yourself. Think about what you do believe and act upon and see if there is anything that you allow into your life that isn’t rational. For example, are you at all superstitious, do you ever read horoscopes, what are your feelings about death, dead people and the possibility of an existence after death? There are so many things that can creep into our worldview that are not rational, and yet something that is actually very sensible and rational, the existence of the Creator God, we choose to view as ‘unreal’. Admittedly, discovering ‘facts’ about God is somehow academic, but this book isn’t about convincing people about facts. It is about introducing the possibility of a very real and experiential relationship with God who created us and who has a purpose for our lives.