I just love the sound of my children singing praises to Jesus, hearing them share about what they read and learned in their quiet time each day. I also love hearing them work on the verses they are memorizing for AWANA. I pray it is more than just head knowledge, more than just memorizing to get their book finished each year so they can get a cool plaque.

This afternoon I was listening to them practice with Catherin. Our house is rather open and one can hear everything that is said.  Catherin is learning Jeremiah 10:10a this week.

“But the LORD is the true God! He is the living God…” Jeremiah 10:10a (Common English Bible)

I asked her to repeat it for me and then I asked her if she believed it and she answered that she didn’t. That prompted my next question of “why not?”

I have been told she does not at all like to be asked why or why not questions. But I took the leap thinking maybe if we knew why, or some of the why, it would help us understand her better. At the very least it would give us a prayer point for her.

She at first told me she didn’t know. Then she said it was because her parents don’t believe it. Since she had earlier told us no one in China believes in Jesus I asked if her parents had ever heard about Jesus. She told me yes because in college they have to study about America. I guess that is added to the study.

I told her “Oh, I see.” and left the room to finish preparing for supper. But my mind started turning and I wondered why does anyone believe? Do we just believe because someone else tells us to or tells us this is what we believe?

Please know, I’m not questioning why I believe at all! I know why I believe. I believe in Jesus because without Him I have no purpose. I am nothing.  I pondered if I would believe if I hadn’t gone to church every Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday night of my life as a child.  Would I believe if I hadn’t gone to a Christian school?

Those are questions I honestly can’t answer. Sometime I’ll share my “how I came to believe” story, but what about you? Why do you believe what you believe? (I am not naive enough to think everyone who reads this is a follower of Jesus. I want to hear from those who aren’t as well. I just ask that you keep it nice.)