Copyright 2010: 
Chaplain's Chat
I Believe in God Because ....
I was in work the other day a one of the Part Time ladies called Sue asked if I could put something down on paper for her 12 year old son whose homework was finding someone who believes in God and the reasons why. It had to be quite short and to the point.
I thought about it for a while and came up with the below. I have been told tonight that Marcus the lad who submitted the homework got an ‘A’ – that’s the first time I have ever got an ‘A’ Well done Marcus.
I believe in God for many different reasons. The best of these reasons is that I have personally spoken to him and him to me. That sounds a bit heavy but it’s true. I have been in positions many times where I have needed help. I have prayed quite specifically for some help and he God, has been there for me. Some times it’s not the answer I have wanted but I have been left in no doubt that the answer is from God and not generated from my brain because it was something I really wanted but the little voice within me whilst praying said ‘NO’ I was once asked do you believe in God. Not sure what believing in God meant I did not say too much but wanting to believe in something I though I would start having a look at religions.
I was at the time a member of the Church of England. I only went to church for ‘hatching, batching, and dispatching’. – Births, marriages and deaths. As I enquired of different religions they all said one thing – we are the true religion we are right and everyone else is wrong. It was when I came into contact the Mormon Church that things changed. I was able in very short time answer some questions that had always been left unanswered by the already contacted churches. Some of these questions were: - Where did I come from? What am I doing here? Where do I go after I leave here? If you had time I would be able to tell you these answers. And the answers to many more of your questions.
I can only do this because I believe in God. I have learnt of him and his ways. Unlike the God of the Church of England or the Catholic Church and indeed all the other ‘Christian’ Church’s The God we believe in is part of what is called the Trinity. God the father. God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. The difference is that in the LDS/Mormon Church we understand the 3 personages making up the Trinity are individual persons. It is logical to me to have God the Father if he has a Son. We believe both of these persons are persons in their own right. Each with there own body. The Holy Spirit is the third member of the Trinity which is sometimes called the Godhead and is a person of Spirit with no tangible body – yet.
This is how the spirit is able to visit us and impress us and move us and hopefully push us in the right direction when we ask God for his help or advice. It’s the Holy Spirit whose job it is to answer for God. That’s his job and he is rather good at it. It’s because of little detail things like the above that I have a very real understanding of how God works. I cannot relate how I believe because it is something which is personal to me. It would be like me asking you to describe how Salt tastes? How would you tell me what salt tastes like? The Gospel is very simple, in my religion there are no mysteries all is open in a clear and simple way - it has to be because the Gospel and the belief in God has got to be open to everybody from a Brain surgeon to a dustbin man. If it gets complicated people do not understand and soon get fed up and walk away.
The Gospel is simple it is only man who has complicated it to prove how clever they are in understanding it. I was able to be taught that God has made provision for those who have died before hearing the Gospel of the Lord when they lived on the earth. They learn it in the Spirit World which you would know as Heaven. There are other spirits there who are able to teach it to those who want to believe. If you don’t want to believe then you just simply say no thanks. It’s your choice, the same choice you had when alive on the earth. It’s because of this and other things that I have learnt that I have to believe in God as there is so much evidence available to help us understand how he works.
We in the Mormon Church are the only Christian Church to have Temples. We use these Temples to baptise those who have already died and have agreed in the spirit world to be taught by others there who are happy to teach the Gospel in the spirit world (heaven). The ordinance of baptism can only be taken out on the earth. So members of the church stand in for those who have died so they can be counted as Gods people. This for me is even more evidence that God makes provision for all his children to return to him and that makes me feel very good. I would rather be told that a loving God made mankind rather than some Slippy frog type creature decided one day to crawl out of the pond and start on his long walk to become human. Or that one sunny day in Africa an Ape decided that it was time to become a human.
I understand that we were created by God who did create this world for us to live in (But not in 6 days as most think) It was God who made this world so beautiful for us to experience all that we can whilst we have our time on it. Then when our time is up we return back to the spirit home we came from with all our memories and experiences from our time on earth. We meet up with old friends and family members who have died before us and have been waiting for our return. They rejoice at our arrival. We then wait for our extended family to return to us in the fullness of time and so build an eternal family which will last forever. That to me shows a loving God who loves us all and all he ask in return is that we love him.
That’s why I believe in God.
Reg Walker,Chaplain, England Chapter XIV
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints