Do you believe this?

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11:25-26

Jesus asks us to believe the unseen. Even in the gospels, when He interacted with people, He called them to faith. He called Martha, who was in the midst of grieving her dead brother, to believe that He was the resurrection and the giver of eternal life. That seems impossibly hard to do in such a moment, and also exactly what her heart was crying out in hope to understand. Yet she still needed to believe.

I first felt the strong tug of the gospel to believe the impossible truth that Jesus is the resurrection and the life when I was just a child. I remember that moment, what I now know was the Holy Spirit’s tugging at my heart to believe, as I realized that Jesus died for my sin and rose from the grave so that death would not claim me eternally. And I believed, talking through the gospel and then praying with Mrs. Adams on the second floor of the education wing of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kansas one summer morning in 1971. 

And from that moment Jesus became my resurrection and my life. Christian faith and thought became my underlying foundation for the rest of my life. I entered into a lifetime of following Jesus, and there is not one regret. I’ve had my struggles. I’ve had my heartaches. I have processed seasons of doubts with a reasoned faith. And all the while, I will answer Jesus’ question with a resounding: “Yes, Lord! I believe this!”