I used to be one of those people who stood on the outside of Christianity and mocked the weakness and ignorance of believers who needed a God just to get through the day, who clung to the hope of a savior and a reality over which they had no control. I seized every opportunity to point out contradictions and hypocricies in Christian (dare I say human) behavior, choosing to condemn God for the actions of His people.

As a self-proclaimed existentialist for the better part of three decades–after growing up Catholic–God became irrelevant to me; my actions and the consequences of those actions rested squarely upon my shoulders and with every decision I thought I was defining what it meant to be human. I believed I gave my life meaning. I took the blame and I got the glory–end of story.

If you are one of those people today, a non-believer standing on the outside of Christianity looking in, I implore you to continue reading and to hear these words: I. WAS. WRONG. Allow me to hold up a different lens.

The cynicism with which many non-believers view Christians and the idea of Christian hope is puzzling even as I admit I used to share it. Somehow it has become hip to be hopeless and cool to compete over increasingly troubling levels of anxiety, depression, and mental illness. We feel the emptiness. We recognize the brokenness, and we struggle desperately to name it–to control it–tragically mistaking diagnosis for identity. We know something is desperately wrong with the world, and while we want to be in charge, we fail to take responsibility for our own role in bringing the darkness. Many have settled into the shadows, put them on like a protective cloak, declared themselves either victims or heroes of the human narrative while gaining little ground in the battle against the hopelessness and evil we detest.

As humans, however, we are hard-wired to seek a hero, a savior, a champion. It’s why cultures all over the world since the beginning of storytelling have included hero archetypes: We write stories, design games, and produce shows and movies that give us hope, however false and fleeting. We curl up and lose ourselves to fantasy and fiction. We create heroes in our own image that have no real power at all.

But consider this: Non-believers are operating on the premise that there is no God–that a God who would allow such evil to exist cannot be real. And yet believing He is not real does not take away the evil, the darkness, the pain, poverty, oppression, and injustice. What if . . . what if the lack of faith in God’s existence is what is allowing the darkness to take over? What if more people believed and stepped into a relationship with Jesus? What if more people lived like Jesus and chose to do the things Jesus did? We’ve tried it the “our” way, and the human condition seems to be getting increasingly worse. If there is no God, then it can’t be His fault.

It’s not merely the hope that seems ridiculous or the God who seems careless that makes non-believers skeptical. Contributing to the unbelief is the seemingly rampant hypocrisy of Christians.

Are there people who misread, misunderstand, and misrepresent the timeless word and wisdom of God, either intentionally or for the same reasons some people mis-read the news or misunderstand basic instructions?

Absolutely.

Humans are weak and suffer from myriad afflictions that cause us to misunderstand and misspeak: inherent imperfection, ignorance, laziness, bias, fear, lack of context or education, etc., etc. As an adult non-believer I did a lot of reading about the Bible–arguments written by folks who maybe had and maybe had not actually studied it with an appreciation for that thing the world simply cannot provide, for their own inner need for hope and Truth, for the Bible’s rich historical and cultural context. In those tumultuous years I failed to pick the Bible up and actually study it myself. I urge you to do so.

Despite how much I would prefer not to shine a light on the mistakes of my non believing years, there is real value in believers owning up to and allowing God to use our worst moments to reach others: believers who are struggling (because we all do from time-to-time) and non-believers alike. I am reminded of Paul, who persecuted early Christians with a zeal like no other, until he had an encounter with the Spirit of God that radically changed him. He then went on to author over half of the New Testament and help build the church of Christ.

God uses broken people. All of us. Because we are all broken, and any Christian who tells you otherwise has missed the mark.

As a former skeptic, critic, and persecutor of Christians, who stood on the outside, looked through a dirty lens and saw only weakness, foolishness, and fault, I promise you this: Jesus can be trusted. Hope is always in. The peace and joy I feel now that come only through relationship with the One who created me are very real and somewhat staggering. I do not tell you these things because I care what you think of me for choosing to love Jesus; I tell you because I want you, too, to experience them.

But here’s the thing I know: Until you know, you really don’t know. You can take my word for it; but far more importantly, you can take God’s word for it. Look through a different lens and see the Truth: God does not lie.