John 

My journey to faith has been long and sporadic; but marked by some stark, pivotal moments of realisation. 
Although we did not attend church regularly as a child, my dad used to encourage me to say my prayers before bed each night and he sometimes took me to Sunday services at Lower Beeding Holy Trinity Church, where he had sung in the choir as a boy. But the most profound thing I ever remember him saying to me about belief was when I had become a parent: “You do know, don’t you, boy?” 

Witnessing the birth of my four children and only then realising my own mortality was a pivotal moment for me. My parents’ love for me had been unconditional and I truly recognised what this meant when I had my own children. Universal love is important: I see the love of God everywhere reflected by and reciprocated through other people; as part of this universal love, I recognise the importance and cathartic, liberating power of forgiveness. 

In the late 90s, two psychologists guardedly told me the results of a rigorously-timed, computer-based Myers & Briggs psychometric personality test. It was a revelation: as if they could read my innermost thoughts. At that time, I was an ISTJ (logistician) with introverted, sensing, thinking and judging traits. I was supposedly reliable and responsible; practical and detail-oriented, focusing on concrete facts and details, and good at problem-solving; orderly and organised, liking clear structures and procedures to be in place; loyal and traditional, respecting authority; and quiet and reserved. Most significantly, I almost invariably looked for hard evidence when making day-to-day decisions and life choices rather than trusting my emotions, intuition or instinct. 

So, what hard evidence did I have for my faith? My immediate answer was in the wonders of Creation. The complex interrelationship and infinitesimal scale of everything in the universe made it hard for me to believe that it all evolved randomly by accident and was not consciously orchestrated. Surely, life forms are too advanced, beautiful, complex and fantastical to be purely random: who created them and how did each life form determine its next evolutionary step without a roadmap?

Forget winning the National Lottery, ultimately, there was an infinitesimally miniscule statistical chance of me or you ever existing as the person you are, let alone as any other person or indeed life form: so, are we all random and just very, very lucky; or are we each lovingly created and put on Earth as one of God’s children? 

Several times in my life, I have experienced some very powerful, revelatory episodes that I find very hard to explain: sometimes when I’ve been under a lot of stress and/or sometimes when my blood sugar has been getting low! These events have been like an epiphany or eureka moment: they have taken me through a process of catharsis followed by a period of total peace and calm. Everything in the world suddenly makes absolute sense: I have totally committed myself to God, my troubles have been purged and my belief is unwavering.