Finding God in the Waves
I recently finished a great book from Mike McHargue, popularly known as Science Mike. It’s called Finding God in the Waves, and it looks at Mike’s journey away from God and back again. Mike tells it with refreshing transparency as well as an enjoyable sense of humor. What makes it really stand out is the focus on science and logic he brings into the discussion. If you’ve ever wondered if faith is just a crutch for the simple-minded, Mike offers you another perspective. The subtitle of the book: “How I lost my faith and found it again through science,” shows that this isn’t your typical Christian point of view.
Mike’s story—and this book in general—doesn’t fit well into normal Christian categories. That’s why it’s a great way to challenge your thinking and possibly emerge with a much deeper understanding of your own faith in Jesus. As with all authors, I don’t agree with everything in the book. Yet I found this one to be a gem of a read and I highly recommend it. You can also hear Mike on the Liturgists podcast or on the Ask Science Mike podcast.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:
You can know God intimately while acknowledging the mystery, even the absurdity, of such a notion.
I didn’t have to see contradictions as being evidence against God. Instead, they were reflections of a God confident enough to share Himself through the words of humans.
If you’ve never studied astronomy, you may not realize that the sky is a time machine.
A father feels love for his daughter and wants to protect her. You can explain it all with science—and with stunning accuracy. But that explanation can’t tell you what it’s like to be an actual father who loves his daughter, who would do anything to protect her and keep her safe. Explaining the physics, the chemistry, the biology, and the neuroscience of this moment is like projecting sheet music onto a movie screen instead of listening to the symphony.
But I’ve learned that the need for certainty is an addiction we can kick—that it’s possible to have faith, and even follow Christ, without needing to defend historical Christianity like a doctoral thesis. We can approach beliefs not as gems to be mined from the earth and protected with clenched fists, but as butterflies that land on an open hand—as gifts to enjoy but not possess.
Trying to describe God is a lot like trying to describe falling in love, and that’s a serious problem for people who doubt that God is real.
Prayer is the most essential practice for cultivating a God network in human brains—even for those who doubt God’s existence.
Prayer might not help you solve the mystery of God rationally, but it may help you encounter God.
The universe itself exists in an eternal pattern of life, death, and resurrection. It seems poetically appropriate that the Source of all would have left this divine signature on the fabric of reality.
Click here to check out the book on Amazon.
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