Willamette National Forest, OR
John 20:27 GNT
Stop doubting and believe.
I have a sticker that reads, “Bigfoot doesn’t believe in you either.” It’s been a long-standing joke in my family to keep your eyes open for Big Foot if we leave our high desert and travel over the mountain passes to the valley. According to a Washington Post poll, 11% of Americans believed in Bigfoot in 2014. With the emergence of YouTube and the ability to share video footage like the recent Parker video from Durango, Colorado, that percentage has grown to over 15%!
Despite a legendary Native American heritage, the first written report of a Bigfoot or Sasquatch sighting and subsequent capture was in the British Columbia Daily Colonist newspaper on July 3, 1882. Although, turns out….you guessed it – there was no capture. Four hundred people came to view the creature and all they found was a man at a jail wanting to tell them about a creature they had captured and was now sailing to England, but then died aboard ship and was disposed of in the ocean.
Cliff Barackman, operator of the North American Bigfoot Center in Boring, OR and former host of “Finding Bigfoot” on Animal Planet says, “I know they are real animals.” But in reality, no one has actually touched one and there is no definitive proof of existence beyond hoaxes, jokes, and a lot of hair of other animals. Yet, people still believe. So it boggles my brain that people cannot accept that Jesus died and rose again when He appeared at least eight times to multiple people. But lest you think he was a ghost or hallucination; people ate with him. Luke 24:38-43 records, “He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.” In an entirely separate incident, his disciple, Thomas, actually touched His scars. John 20: 27-29 states, “Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
I have not seen with my own eyes Big Foot, Jesus, or the President of the United States. Does that mean they don’t exist? What harm does it cause if I believe? But perhaps the real question should be, what harm does it cause if I DON’T believe? Even atheist Albert Camus said, “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.”
Thankfully because of God’s grace, this is a choice we need not doubt. God exists. God sent His Son, Jesus, to die, to rise again, and to give us all eternal life. ALL. Eternal life available to everyone! 1 Timothy 2:3-5 confirms, “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.”
I believe.
