Have the same old things in life lost their power to thrill you? Does life too often seem empty and meaningless? Do you wonder where we came from, why we are here on this earth, and where—if anywhere—we will go when we die? Perhaps you are afraid of what the future holds, as each day, new and seemingly unsolvable problems emerge to challenge mankind. Lost to Found is author Lynne Avery’s firsthand account of her personal journey from intellectual bondage to a personal knowledge of God. For decades, Lynne watched as God gave other people meaning and hope but provided none for her. Her intellect told her there was no God, life had no meaning, and evolution was the sole cause of our unintended existence. Her heart told her differently. Lynne now shares with other intellectual skeptics the path to faith and beyond that led her to an internal certainty of God’s presence. Her story is one that offers hope to all who are weary of the emptiness of life.

Lost to Found
     Introduction
I was once an intellectually-trapped skeptic. For years, I stood off at a distance from God and those who believed In Him. I refused to budge an inch while I waited for the miraculous answers to all of my questions about life, God, and the Bible. Sometimes I envied those who had a strong faith but with my words and attitude I distained them. Somehow I knew faith wasn’t for me and would never be. I was way too smart for that.
For those of us who choose to put our faith in the resourcefulness of our intellects rather than some God, the road we walk generally gets tougher as time goes by.  Sometimes our wake-up call comes early in life by a sudden tragedy. But more often the loneliness and insecurity gradually creep through the walls of our intellectual fortress as we age.
Deep down inside, the majority of us eventually come to realize that the greatest issues of life are not under our control. Not one of us can escape our own death or the death(s) of those we love.  Further, no matter how clever, careful, or diligent we are, a sampling of calamities such as illness, divorce, financial ruin, trouble with our kids, as well as a host of others, come to most of us. It is when we must mange these types of life events that the rationalization powers of our trusty intellects are sorely tested.
Currently, the days of testing are upon us all. The problems of our nation and world are spiraling out of control. The opportunities, affluence, and freedoms that we who live in the United States have taken for granted all of our lives are no longer assured. Many would agree that worse problems could be just around the corner.  Every day I talk to people who admit that they fear the future.
 While we all need to pull together to help our struggling country and to work to preserve our freedoms, we also need as individuals to find a way to live in an increasingly unpredictable and hostile world. Change, loss, and uncertainty about the future are unavoidable. But we do not have to live in fear of what tomorrow will bring.
Like a town preparing for a hurricane, many of us are searching for something to hold onto that provides lasting meaning, takes away the fear, and which will withstand the coming storms. We need something that is eternally valuable and I’m not talking about gold.  For those who know God and live by faith, the search is over.
Of course, the words “faith” and “God” provide very little in terms of security, hope, or peace-of-mind to the non-believer. Whether we call ourselves atheists or we are regular attendees at our churches, without the experience of God’s presence in our lives, these words are often just a one-dimensional symbol of a mystery that we can’t seem to grasp.
There are many reasons that people do not know God. Lost to Found is for all who seek to know God, but it is particularly dedicated to helping those who are blocked from knowing God by the over intellectualizing of faith.  I once believed that living by faith was inferior to living by my intellect. This assumption was so basic to my worldview that I didn’t even consider the possibility that perhaps seeing life through the eyes of faith, coupled with the experience of God’s presence, may be a far wiser way to live.
A few of the multitude of issues that seemed irreconcilable to me were: If God was always in existence then who created Him? Why does a good God allow bad things? Why aren’t the dinosaurs in the Bible? How did Jonah survive inside a whale?  What about carbon-12 dating and archeological discrepancies with Biblical timelines?
 Lost to Found addresses some of these and other common intellectual roadblocks. It also presents strong scientific and philosophical arguments that support the existence of intelligent design.
The expectation, however, is not that reasoned arguments will convince the intellectual skeptic of God’s existence. I know from my own experience that when one question is answered for a die-hard skeptic, another one is often born.  Words are the tools of the intellectual one-upmanship game that we, who put our faith in our intellects, like to play with each other. While words can fascinate, they cannot hold a candle to reality. Mere words alone have about as much chance of revealing the existence of God to a skeptic as I do of riding to the moon on my microwave.
If we have been seriously burned, we never forget the experience even if we cannot adequately verbalize it. This is the power and truth of experience above conceptualization. In the same way, we must go beyond words to experience the reality of God. Until I experienced God’s presence, I never knew Him. I only knew about Him and that wasn’t good enough.
It’s not answers to endless questions that most intellectual skeptics need so much as it is to be reacquainted with the miracles of the human heart.  It is with our hearts that we seek God and it is within the heart of mankind that God’s Spirit comes to reside.  We need to open the gate of our intellectual fortresses far enough to reveal the multi-dimensional world where faith and God become real. Lost to Found shows the way to that place where each of us must decide…to humble ourselves and enter into God’s presence or to turn away. 
The choice to know God is given to each of us and this is good news for all of us including the skeptic who truly longs to believe. After I came to have a relationship with God, I found that my heart desperately wanted the love and peace that He offers far more than my mind needed the answers it once demanded. After all, why do we seek intellectual answers to spiritual issues if not to obtain peace by knowing the truth?
Because experience is far closer to reality then conceptualization, especially when it comes to the supernatural world, much of what I came to understand about God and spiritual matters came only after I experienced God in my life and heart.
I still have some unanswered questions but I also feel God’s presence inside of me and no mere unanswered question or intellectual conundrum can compete with, alter, or diminish that life changing truth


So, let us begin the intellectual work first by addressing some common intellectual roadblocks to faith. As God says: Come now, let us reason together, (Isaiah 1:18 NIV).
Most rational people (and skeptics are above all rational) prefer to debate or discuss complex issues in an organized way. In the next several chapters we will attempt to place one reasoned argument upon another in a well-ordered rational sequence with the broadest issues first, like building a pyramid.

We will begin by examining the question: Are the universe and life a result of billions of years of undirected processes or are they, as well as the processes of physics, chemistry and biology, a result of intelligent design?

Lynne Avery has a degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and is the author of two books. She is a retired civil servant, who lives with her son and two dogs near San Diego, California.