I talk to a lot of people who are kind of turned off from God. I get it – there are about a thousand reasons not to believe in God and/or not to believe he is good. Things like his “followers” are really bad representatives sometimes. Or religion is sort of stuffy and seems like a bunch of life-sucking rules and rituals. Or because bad things happen. Take your pick – the holocaust, losing your spouse or child, or any of the other various atrocities a human soul can suffer. How can we believe God is good when he allows such suffering? Not to mention many of us have found great beauty and meaning in our lives outside religion or faith.

Now I am not God’s apologist. I don’t need to prove his existence. If he is there, I’m sure we’ll find that out at some point.  And if he is there, I have faith you’ll stumble upon him sooner or later, whether that is in the quiet of your own soul, or in such unbelievable circumstances you can’t help but believe he is there. But I’m not here to make a logical argument for God’s existence. My desire is just to give you an entree into faith if you ever thought God might be there, but found it very hard to believe in him or his goodness.

Most of us have turned away from God or had a hard time believing he is there because of some or all of the aforementioned circumstances. And then people, especially religious people, go and make it even more difficult. They say you have to believe this certain way to actually believe in God, like they own God or have some kind of corner on the market of the truth. (As if God cares what they think about him or needs them to be his spokespeople. I’m sure if God does exist, he is fully capable of speaking for himself.) It’s hard enough to believe in God without people and what they think getting in the way.

My advice would just be to forget about those people and what they say and see for yourself. Here is an exercise you can try if you have trouble believing God is there or that he is good. First, picture God in your mind. If you’re like me, you imagine God as a bearded old man, with sort of a half-torso, hovering on the clouds  – as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Most of us believe God is religious like the religious people we know and wants to make sure we are following some arbitrary rules he has set and if we aren’t, he is more than ready to judge and reprimand us or send us to hell if we don’t make the cut. Or we think he is like some other people we know – distant, cruel or rejecting.

Now think of the most compassionate, non-judgmental and generous person you know. Or read the story of the prodigal. Or think of the good you see in the world – the creative, the hopeful, the beautiful. I am guessing you have some positive feelings when you do this second exercise, which may be different than the feelings you had when you envisioned God the first time. Unfortunately, the goodness we see in the world is many times not what we think of when we think of God.

But this grace, beauty and compassion we see around us must have come from somewhere. If God is at the bottom of and ultimately responsible for everything, he must be responsible for the good, too. If God is there, he is at least as compassionate and gracious as you are, or as the most compassionate and gracious person you know, probably a great deal more. There are some people I know who don’t profess to have any faith at all who I believe are some of the kindest, most caring and beautiful souls I have met. I can’t help but believe if there is a God, that is what he is like, even though they might not claim that.

Sometimes we get too caught up in what other people are saying about God or what we ourselves can’t get over (e.g. that God is responsible for all the pain in the world) and can’t see the simple stuff – that God is the good. Maybe everything meaningful and beautiful you have ever experienced is God. If God is there, maybe he is who we hope he is – perfectly loving, gracious and compassionate – not what everyone has told us when they were trying to make sure we believed right. Maybe you can find God for yourself.