Believing in what we can't see

It was a slow journey to the office early this morning, as Cheyenne is socked in completely by a fog bank that limits visibility in places to just a few feet in front of you. I struggled to see the headlights of oncoming vehicles before I decided to risk it and pull through an intersection, especially north of town.

I said a small prayer and trusted that a car without its headlights on wasn't barreling toward me from either direction. I had to trust both in what I could see and what I couldn't.

Which made me think again about our youth group. As we were talking about prayer last Sunday, I got a strong sense that the reason these teens aren't praying on a regular basis is they really don't know whether to believe that God even exists.

I think some do, and the doubt in the others is natural, of course. But how do you teach someone to believe in what they can't see? Is it even possible, or are we wasting our time?

There are many things in life we grow up believing in, even though we can't see them -- gravity, wind, electricity running through wires into our homes. We couldn't "see" any of these things, but we could see their effects -- gravity when we fell off our bicycle and skinned our knees for the 16th time, electricity when we touched the juiced fence around the cow pasture despite our father's repeated warning not to, and wind ... well, this is Cheyenne ... do we really have to talk about the wind?

We didn't see, but we knew these things existed.

So what about God? We see His efforts around us all the time. But how do we convince young people that God really is at work in our world? How do we let them know He cares when natural disasters are killing thousands of people in Japan; battles are raging in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc.; and people are starving and lack clean water to drink in many parts of the world?

Or to bring it back to situations they may be dealing with, how are they supposed to believe in God when their parents are fighting, a supposed "friend" stabs them in the back at school or a loved one dies unexpectedly? (I have to pause and reflect for a minute on a story I read yesterday while judging a Montana newspaper contest about 2- and 6-year-old boys whose parents were killed by a drunken driver while riding home on a motorcycle. It will stick with me both because the story was well-written and the accident happened on my birthday in 2009. Who's going to convince them God exists when they have to grow up without Mom and Dad?)

I didn't grow up a Christian, so I struggled with these questions and many others at their age. I still struggle with them today from time to time, but my faith and understanding of the Bible reassures me that even in times of tragedy, God is here with us.

Any suggestions on what to tell our youth? Please post them below, and take a moment today to pray for all those (and ourselves) who struggle to believe in what they do not see.

A possible prayer:

Lord, we've read the "Footprints in the Sand" poem hundreds of times, yet we still struggle at times in our lives to believe that you're with us when the chips are really down. Be with us, lift us up, reassure us of your constant presence. And we ask especially that you be with those like some of our youth who don't yet have a deeper faith that helps them to understand that even though they can't see you, you're really there. Touch their lives, God, and help them to know you care. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.