The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but living as if he doesn’t exist
by Craig Groeschel
Zondervan, March 2010
Charles Blondin was a world-renowned tightrope artist and acrobat. On June 30, 1859, before a stunned crowd of 100,000 excited onlookers, Blondin was the first person to cross Niagara Falls by tightrope. He crossed 1,100 feet on a single three-inch hemp cord, strung from 160 feet above the falls on one side to a spot 270 feet above the falls on the other. The breathless assembly watched him accomplish, step by slow step, a feat most believed impossible.
But Blondin was just getting started. In the years to come, the daring entertainer crossed again and again: on stilts, in a sack, even pushing a wheelbarrow! The story goes that an exuberant onlooker called out, “You could cross with a man in that wheelbarrow!” Blondin agreed and invited the man to climb in. The spectator nervously declined.
My dysfunctional relationship with God was often like that. I’ve always believed in God, just not enough to trust him with my whole life in his wheelbarrow. I knew God could fulfill his promises, but I was never sure he’d do it for me. My selfish Christian Atheist view was that God existed for me, rather than I for him. If he’d do what I thought he should, I’d trust him more. If he’d come through for me, I’d give him more of my life.
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