Do You Believe in Magic? How Ben Rector helped me believe in God again

Jun 25

Jun 25 Do You Believe in Magic? How Ben Rector helped me believe in God again

A few days ago, Ben Rector released a pop album called “Magic,” and hidden in the title track is the reason I believe there’s a God.

Rector begins the album with these words in the song “Extraordinary Magic,”

You won't believe it and strange as it sounds
Extraordinary magic follows you around
And the camera can't catch it, you won't see it in the mirror
If I say look behind you, you turn around, it disappears
But I see it, I see it, I swear I do
I see extraordinary magic in you

It’s no secret that the past year was less than magical for me. Teaching in a low-income, big city school put me face to face with things I’d never seen before, things I struggled to reconcile with my small-town God. I left Mayberry and entered Mayhem, where the Good Sheriff seemed to lose his jurisdiction.

A year like that left a boy questioning if God is real. And all the libraries of religious apologetics couldn’t quite quell the doubts.

That’s when I heard Ben Rector – that great apologist of our age – sing a love song through my car speakers. And it reminded me, aside from all the fancy religious philosophy and historical evidence, of the reason I really do believe God is real.

I believe in God because I believe in magic.

Ben sings of a world full of the extraordinary. He croons about wonderful things he can’t prove or catch with a camera. But he swears that he sees them.

And when I stop and look, I swear I see it, too. The earth is alive with the extraordinary, infused from some other world.

I really do believe that. And in the times when I don’t believe it, I still want to believe it, which seems to be just as good.

I want to believe in magic. I want to believe that leprechauns are hiding in the trees and disappear when you look their way. I want to believe that tiny elves tangle up my earbuds when I put them in my pocket.

I want to believe that the sun rises every morning not simply to abide by galactic regulations, but because it’s under a spell. I want to believe that trees sway not because of some high-brow theory called “wind,” but because dryads can’t help but dance.

I want to believe that man was made from enchanted dirt. And I want to believe that snakes crawl on their bellies because they’re cursed.

But most importantly, I want to believe that this stuff is more than just matter, that we are more than book-smart fish roaming aimlessly on an unconscious rock meaninglessly spinning in an indifferent universe.

And I swear I’ve seen the supernatural stuff that puts that awful theory to rest.

Because I’ve seen people laugh before. I’ve seen people play with their kids and sing songs together and tell stories. I’ve seen them read books and build skyscrapers and pray.

I’ve seen the homeless share everything they have and teachers who dedicate their lives to children simply because they want to. I’ve seen injustice so grievous as to make the magic of morality almost palpable.

I’ve received the magic of gifts and notes and phone calls, and I’ve given them, too. I’ve been bewitched by a campfire, that dancing spirit that mesmerized man from the beginning.

I’ve felt the effects of the time-bending spell called grace, the one that makes the past and the future disappear, allowing you to enjoy all the present magic. I’ve experienced sunsets, songs, and sacred spaces that can’t be described by any other word than magical.

And all this, which just scratches the surface of the spells to be found here, is truly extra-ordinary in the technical sense. It is more than mundane. This magic is other-worldly.

Over a hundred years ago, a guy named G.K. Chesterton wrote a book called Orthodoxy, and in it he says, “I had always believed that the world involved magic; now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician.”

Magic itself doesn’t appear from thin air without a magician to make it. The goodness must have a source. There must be meaning behind the magic.

Everywhere I look, I see this meaningful magic. And in the times when I don’t see it – like much of last year, honestly – I still feel like it should be there. Even that tendency to search for meaning – the mere fact that I want to believe – is, in and of itself, magical.

And if I ever start to doubt the existence of a magician, the thought of an alternate world without one is enough to keep me believing. I can’t think of anything more lifeless and boring than trudging through an un-enchanted world.

I couldn’t be more serious about this. I’m not writing a Harry Potter book. Because it isn’t the purely logical arguments for God that have convinced me in any practical way. It is the daily engagement with something more. Atheism may explain a universe, but it doesn’t seem to be the same universe I’m living in.

I believe in God because I believe in magic. And I believe in Christianity because of all the shows I've seen, it’s the most magical.

Ben Rector ends his apologetic treatise like this,

And I know that miracles happen who cares what they say
Is love nothing short of a miracle happening over and over every day
So I'll keep my eyes open, awed and amazed
And if you start to doubt it I'll remind you of the million ways
I see it, I see it, I swear I do
I see extraordinary magic in you

So when we're struggling to see the magic, or much less the magician, maybe we can start by finding ordinary, other-worldly love. And once we are under its spell, we’ll begin to keep our eyes open more and more, awed and amazed, to see the magician putting on a show, just for us, full of extraordinary magic.