That is a good ques­ti­on. Becau­se if God is just an inven­ti­on of peo­p­le or the church, faith seems out­da­ted. But when it exists and can be expe­ri­en­ced, faith comes ali­ve and has a life-chan­­ging power in ever­y­day life. And this is exact­ly what we expe­ri­en­ced per­so­nal­ly when we set out in search of God. Each of us found out in our own way whe­ther God real­ly exists and tes­ted spe­ci­fic pro­mi­ses from God. For exam­p­le, “If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me ”*. And each of us has recei­ved per­so­nal ans­wers in life and inde­pendent­ly expe­ri­en­ced a deep peace that Jesus pro­mi­sed to tho­se who invi­te him into their lives: “What I lea­ve you is my peace. I will give you a peace that the world can­not give.

Faith is the­r­e­fo­re not a reli­gi­on for us, but a per­so­nal rela­ti­onship with God.That is why we belie­ve, becau­se we have expe­ri­en­ced him.

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*Jere­mi­ah 29 ver­se 13; **John 14 ver­se 27

Dear Hans, many peo­p­le ask them­sel­ves this ques­ti­on — espe­ci­al­ly tho­se who are con­cer­ned about the exis­tence of God. The basic ques­ti­on often lies behind it: With so much suf­fe­ring in the world, can the­re be a God at all? And this basic ques­ti­on is jus­ti­fied and it would be pre­sump­tuous of us to cla­im that we have the all-encom­­pas­­sing ans­wer to it. Nevert­hel­ess, we have alre­a­dy given it some thought and have even published a video on the sub­ject: www.gott-suchen.com/warum-laesst-gott-soviel-leid-zu/

If you have any fur­ther ques­ti­ons, we will be hap­py to ans­wer them.

Dear Hans,

Thank you for your fun­da­men­tal ques­ti­on, which pro­ba­b­ly all peo­p­le ask them­sel­ves at some point. And the reason for this, in my opi­ni­on, is that this ques­ti­on is deep­ly ing­rai­ned in us. We ask our­sel­ves about the mea­ning of life becau­se we have unful­fil­led needs within us. We try to satis­fy the­se needs with various things in life — in the hope that we will final­ly be com­ple­te­ly hap­py when we have achie­ved this or that goal or can final­ly afford the purcha­se we have been saving up for for a long time. But once the wish has been ful­fil­led, expe­ri­ence shows that an unful­fil­led lon­ging remains and the quest for ful­fill­ment con­ti­nues.

And just ima­gi­ne: Now someone comes along who claims “I want to satis­fy your hun­ger for life”. Would you want to find out more about him? Would you try it out? You can, becau­se the per­son who claims this is Jesus and he intro­du­ces hims­elf in the Bible. He wants to meet you per­so­nal­ly, give you ful­fill­ment in life and much more: He wants to res­to­re your bro­ken rela­ti­onship with God, grant you for­gi­ve­ness and give you eter­nal life with God. He can do this becau­se when he came to earth, he died on the cross for our sins and pro­ved through his resur­rec­tion that he had con­que­r­ed death. You can find out more here.

Behind the ques­ti­on of the mea­ning of life often lies a much more fun­da­men­tal ques­ti­on of mea­ning, name­ly the ques­ti­on of whe­ther the­re is more to life than living a few years on earth and then having to give it all away again. But if the­re real­ly is more — can we find this mea­ning in life? “God has pla­ced eter­ni­ty in our hearts” is the Bible’s expl­ana­ti­on for this (The Bible, Eccle­si­as­tes 3 ver­se 11). In other words: We are made for more than just living a few years on earth. We are actual­ly made for eter­ni­ty. And this often uncon­scious fee­ling brings us to this fun­da­men­tal ques­ti­on about the mea­ning of life. But if the Bible has some­thing to say about this essen­ti­al ques­ti­on, then it also pro­vi­des ans­wers as to how we can recon­nect with God, who pres­ents hims­elf in the Bible as the “source of life”. And it also pro­vi­des ans­wers on how we can prepa­re our­sel­ves for eter­ni­ty. So I sim­ply invi­te you to look into the Bible for yours­elf.

If you would like to read the Bible, you can order a free New Tes­ta­ment (the second part of the Bible) here or you can read the Bible online or via a free app. We will also be hap­py to ans­wer any fur­ther ques­ti­ons you may have.

Dear Emi­ly, this ques­ti­on is as old as human histo­ry. And at the same time, I find it signi­fi­cant that every gene­ra­ti­on asks its­elf this ques­ti­on about God and the mea­ning of life. I per­so­nal­ly have also asked mys­elf this ques­ti­on. The Bible says: “If you ask for me with all your heart, I will let you find me.” I sim­ply tried this out for mys­elf and I recei­ved ans­wers. From the moment I con­scious­ly invi­ted Jesus to come into my life and accom­pa­ny me in life, I expe­ri­en­ced his clo­sen­ess and super­na­tu­ral peace in my life. And many other peo­p­le I know have had simi­lar expe­ri­en­ces. At www.Gott-suchen.com you will find many reports from peo­p­le who have expe­ri­en­ced God in their ever­y­day lives. To get to know God bet­ter, I also recom­mend that you read the Bible. Becau­se the Bible is a living book. As you read, ask God to speak to you and you will rea­li­ze how some sen­ten­ces speak direct­ly into your life. I recom­mend that you start with the Gos­pel of John. We will also be hap­py to send you a New Tes­ta­ment free of char­ge. And if you have any fur­ther ques­ti­ons: We always have an open ear for you : )

All the best, Jona­than