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I have heard many people say that they would believe in God if God revealed Himself to them in clear, undeniable ways. Richard Dawkins, the New Atheist, said that God would have to write a direct message in the sky before he would believe (and then, he added, he would still assume that he was hallucinating or something else before believing it).

Young children tend to believe in God innately. This is true whether children are raised in religious homes or non-religious ones and in countries that are predominantly religious and in countries that are not. Even atheist sociologists have observed this phenomenon that some people have called “universal design intuition.” (See Universal Design Intuition & Darwin’s Blind Spot)

Since the Enlightenment, the general assumption in scientific and academic circles is that children outgrow naïve faith and civilizations do too as they advance in knowledge and sophistication. Thus, the modern assumption is that we outgrow faith in God as people and societies mature.

There is some truth to that assumption as we can see anecdotally (maybe in your own life or in the lives of people you know) and from the history of Western Civilization, with evidence of declining religious belief. Still, 81% of people in the United States in 2022 believed in God (or a higher power) (as reported in a Gallup poll), and the number increased to 82% in 2023 (according to a Pew Research poll).

We have all heard about the “Great Dechurching” – the 40 million Americans who used to go to church, but no longer do. We have also heard about “the rise of the nones“, the increase in the number of Americans who are atheist, agnostic or religiously unaffiliated, which increased precipitously from 16% in 2007 to 30% by 2022!

The nones include people of every age, but the highest percentage of nones are Gen Z and millennials. These age groups have largely grown up not going to church, yet, Bible sales surged in 2024 by 22% (after years of declining sales), and that surge is attributable to first time purchasers among Gen Z and Millennials. (See Bible boom: Why are people buying so many Bibles?; and US Bible Sales Jump 22% in 2024, Driven by First-Time Buyers and New Versions: Circana BookScan)

The hint of a spiritual renewal in the West isn’t limited to young Americans. Justin Brierley has reported on and written a book about the Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God in the UK. (See The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers Are Considering Christianity Again) Agnositics and atheists, at least in the UK, are rethinking their positions on Christianity in noticeable numbers.

While Brierley’s thesis is largely based on anecdotal evidence, the volume of his anecdotal evidence is impressive. He has been hosting dialogues between atheists and Christians regularly since the mid-2000’s, and his data comes from a combination of atheists who have recently cozied up to the idea of God and religion and former atheists who unabashedly believe in God now.

My writing today is inspired by one such former atheist, a bio-chemist with a robust career in science, who became a believer in his middle age. Sy Garte wrote a book about his journey from atheism to faith, The Works of His Hands: A Scientist’s Journey from Atheism to Faith, in which he explains how a combination of science and his experience led him to believe.

The science opened his mind to the possibility of God. His study of religions, philosophy, and theology led him to an intellectual acknowledgement of the likelihood of God, but his experience and willingness to embrace it brought him in the door to faith in God.

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If you read his whole story, he explains how science suggested the possibility of God to him, but he also emphasizes the importance of experience in belief. His acknowledgement of the role of experience, I think, is important, and it is underappreciated.

Skeptics and believers, alike, discount experience. A skeptic might chalk experience up to fantasy, a desire to believe, a disconnection with reality, or similar thinking. A believer might question the experiences of people who arrive at unorthodox beliefs based on their experiences.

Clearly, experience must be tempered by facts, science, and sound reasoning, but Sy Garte maintains that experience is good evidence, nevertheless, primarily for the one who has the experience. In doing so, he acknowledges the objection by the person who hasn’t had such an experience, and his response to the person who hasn’t had an experience with God is what I want to focus on today.

Sy Garte begins by making the bold claim that such a person likely has had experience with God, but they have likely “missed it”, ignored it, discounted it, or explained it away. He sees now that he had experiences with God in his own life during his “extreme atheist phase” that he ignored. He didn’t recognize “the hand of God” working in his life then because he explained it away, denied it, and rejected it.

Sy Garte adds that we get busy, and we are often preoccupied, and we don’t see God at work in our lives because our focus is often elsewhere. In the clip that follows, Sy explains what he means:

I like the way Sy puts it: he says, “God doesn’t yell at you.” Rather, God speaks to people in a “still small voice”, a voice that Sy describes as” barely heard off in the distance.” (See Seeking God and Finding Him)

I think he is exactly right. I am not sure of all the reasons God doesn’t just shout at us (or write messages in the sky). I suspect the answer lies in His desire for a relationship with us characterized by love and trust, and not by coercion and fear.

God could make Himself known immediately to every person. He could overwhelm us with His presence. He could make Himself so evident that we could not possibly deny Him.

James says that mere belief is not what God is after, however, because “even the demons believe and shudder [bristle]!” (James 2:19) Demons don’t have an issue with believing that God exists; He exists, and they oppose Him!

God wants us to believe in Him – as in to trust Him. He doesn’t overwhelm us with His greatness and power. He doesn’t yell at us, as Sy Garte says, and He also doesn’t write sky messages for us. He wants a relationship that is built on our desire to know God.

God doesn’t prove Himself to us beyond a reasonable doubt because He has designed a world in which we can ignore, and discount, and even reject Him if we don’t want to acknowledge Him. If we “find” Him, it is because we want to find Him, and to know Him, and to enter into relationship with Him – not out of obligation, fear, or intimidation, but because of love and trust.

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I have met people who have experienced miraculous healings, but they are not followers of God. They chose to go their own ways, in spite of the experience of a miracle.

This phenomenon is nothing new. Jesus demonstrated as much in the healing of the ten lepers as he was walking one day along the border between the Galilee and Samaria on his way to Jerusalem. (Luke 17:11-19) The lepers met him as he was entering a Village. They called out, asking for Jesus to have pity on them. You might imagine ten people panhandling for money on the outskirts of the Village.

Jesus told them to “go, show yourselves to the priests”, and they were all healed as they followed his instruction. Only one of them, however (and a Samaritan to boot), came back to thank Jesus. Jesus drives home the point with rhetorical questions, as he often did:

“Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”

Luke 17:17-19

It seems that the point of this story is that many (most?) people don’t really want a relationship with God or to give him the respect He deserves. We want to be healthy, to be well fed, and to have the things we want, but that is all. We will run to God in difficult times when we lack the comfort and things we desire to have, but we don’t really want God, Himself.

God is looking for people who want Him. He isn’t going to beat us over the head with his power and authority. He isn’t going to yell at us to get our attention. But, if we want God, and if we really want to find Him and acknowledge God for who He is, He can be found.

I believe God reveals Himself to the people who desire to know Him, and who desire to know Him for the right reasons.

In fact, the Bible says He “stands at the door and knocks”; He whispers to us in a still small voice; and His sheep hear His voice.

I have often said that I needed to come to the end of myself before God made Himself evident to me. The more likely reality is that I didn’t hear or see God at work in my life until I “came to the end of myself,” but He was there at work all along.

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I also see as I look back that I began to engage with those “brushes” with God. This happened well before I committed myself to God in my dark and rebellious teen years.

I have come to believe that each time I did acknowledge Him – even if I didn’t fully understand what I was acknowledging – He would reveal Himself further. It was a two-way street, a type of dance in which I learned to respond to God. He brought me along slowly as I was able (and willing) to go along.

I believe God was prompting me to look for and to desire something more than the pleasure and adrenalin rushes that I was seeking at the time. I believe God was prompting me to respond to Him. When I did respond (even ever so reluctantly), God worked with that, and brought me along as I was ready.

There were other times after I committed myself to God when I desperately wanted a touch from God, some assurance or affirmation from God, and it seemed that God was radio silent. I have gone through years of darkness and stagnation. These were also years in which I was pulling away from God in my own heart, and God seemed distant and cold.

It was no coincidence that I was pulling back from God in those years in which God seemed distant. He knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts, and He knew that I was pulling back.

Just as God didn’t yell at me in those rebellious teenage years, He didn’t turn me around in my later years after I had committed myself to Him, but my love was growing cold. He let me pull away. He didn’t yell at me in either of those times. That isn’t how God operates.

Yes, God is always present. He always stands at the door to our hearts, and he knocks, and He whispers, and He is ready to engage us when we are ready and willing to engage Him.

If you have asked God to reveal Himself to you, and He hasn’t done that, this blog article is for you. Maybe He has revealed Himself, but you missed it; or maybe you ignored Him in your busyness. Maybe you discounted the experience; or maybe you even consciously rejected it. God still stands at the door and knocks.

God is patient, and His mercies are new every morning. The promise to everyone who seeks – who seeks authentically to find – is that God will be found.

We have to understand, though, that God who sees the thoughts in our heads and who knows the words we will speak before we speak them knows when we are inauthentic. Therefore, we must be “real” before God.

It’s ok to be raw before God. He knows you! He knows how you feel, so don’t hide it. Take it to God. Be real!

A person who only wants something from God is also not likely to be met by God. Our needs (or desires) are often what prompt us to pray, cry out, or talk to God. He wants us to take those needs and desires to Him, but He ultimately wants you; and when He has you, He gives Himself to you.

Ultimately, our needs and desires are longings for something we may not even know that we want and need, and that is relationship with our creator. To know God and walk with God means learning to transition from wanting the things we think God will give us to wanting God more than things.

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We cannot prioritize any thing over God and have a lasting relationship with God at the same time. One is going to eclipse the other. If we cling to other things, we will eventually lose touch with God – and God will let us go, because God will not violate our wills to keep us.

Perhaps, this is why Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The more we have in this world, the more content we are likely to be with what we have. The more content we are with what we have (or think we can get), the more unlikely it is that we will want God.

Choosing things over God, of course, is a fool’s choice. We might live 100 years (if we are incredibly lucky)…. And then what? We die.

We like to pretend that we can take our things with us – like burying someone with their watch means they will have it in the afterlife. Nope! Dig up the grave and the watch is still there.

It makes sense to put God above all other priorities. It makes sense to prioritize God and eternal relationship with Him over temporal things that are breaking down even as we cling to them in in this life. So, why not do it?!

If you have “experienced” seeking God and God is not responding (or not seeming to respond), don’t give up. If you are a Christian, and you feel like you haven’t heard from or felt God in years, don’t give up.

Do some personal “work” in your heart. Dig out and expose the things that you prioritize over God. Examine your heart to be sure that you really want God (and not just something you think God can give you).

Take your sad and rebellious heart to God. He knows it already!

If you don’t really want God in your heart of hearts, that’s ok. He knows, and He still wants you. None of us naturally want to submit ourselves to God. Sometimes, the best we can do is to be willing to be willing. Go with it.

Be curious. Be willing to be willing. Be authentic. Be transparent. He already sees you, so you are not fooling anyone. Go to Him anyway, and throw yourself at His feet. He will not reject you because He loves you!

Then, be aware. Be expectant. Look for the clues. “Listen” for the whisper. God isn’t going to yell at you, but He will respond. That’s a promise!