If your sense of worth, purpose, or happiness reside in anyone or anything but your Heavenly Father, you’re fooled and set up for disaster. Different stages of life present various popular idols to substitute for God, but they all fail. How quickly anything enhancing your quality of life can evaporate: intelligence, looks, position, wealth, popularity, influence, friends, romance, family, patriotism, health…. You do the imagining here; for each of these fine qualities, or others you form your identity and telos in, how might it quickly and completely be taken from you?

Wouldn’t you rather your life reside, not in the transient and temporal, but in the changeless and eternal? The latter grounds the former–in Christ resides all goods. Seek only the gift and lose the giver and the gift; seek the giver and avail yourself of all the goods he knows are to your flourishing.

As an individual of vastly limited knowledge, intelligence, virtue, and power, traveling briefly through a speck of space-time, we’re not even in position for knowing what truly is to our own good. Of the millions of potential mates for you to commit the rest of your life to in marriage, who should you choose? How do you know? Do you even know yourself enough to understand why you value what you do? Ask these same question about your career choice, nearly any choice, to sense one’s narrow epistemic limits. Your Creator knows you better than you know yourself, loves you more than you love yourself. God is not limited in knowledge, intelligence, virtue, or power, nor is he traveling briefly through a speck of space-time. Who should captain your ship?

You’ve noticed I haven’t even bothered to establish my theism claims. I won’t bother grounding Christology, either. Those are your assignments. You won’t bother moving toward the light if you wish to continue indulging your sinful passions and pride; no matter how rational the argument, one obfuscates reason when one desires to. Evidence is weighed unreasonably, when it’s against the outcome one desires and when one values satisfying those desires over truth. Pride, lusts, and selfishness are blinding. Submitting to God places him as Lord of all, obeying him rather than one’s blind passions, and loving others as one’s self; natural aversion to all this keeps one even from seeking God, let alone judging evidence about him fairly.

Challenge your mind by the strongest arguments for and against theism and Christology; and challenge your spirit by reading Scripture and Saints meditatively, receptively. Beyond researching (reading, watching YouTube, listening to podcasts, and writing to reputable bloggers), talk privately with those you respect as persons attempting to live their faith with integrity. Then, follow Pascal’s advice: dip your fingers into the Holy Water and attend Mass. Is this any more bother than one spends on a hobby? Here’s a playlist to get started: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfcI5HTdydvEalbw2KUQ63RXY21iVhpj