We are growing ever more distrustful of words. Our world is full of lies, false promises, glittering advertising that doesn’t deliver, and words never backed up by anything. We trust less and less in what we hear. We’ve been lied to and betrayed far too often, and now we’re cautious about what we believe. But the Gospel is God’s truth revealed. As Fr. Rolheiser proclaims, I also believe in God because the Gospel works if we live it. What Jesus incarnated and taught ultimately resonates with what’s most precious, most noble, and most meaningful inside of life and inside each of us. Moreover, this checks out in life. Whenever I have the faith and courage to live out the Gospel and roll the dice on its truth, it always proves to be true: the loaves multiply and feed the thousands, and David defeats Goliath. But it doesn’t work unless I risk it. The Gospel works if we work it. The objection could be raised here, of course, that many sincere, faith-filled people risk their lives and truth on the Gospel and, from all appearances in this world, it doesn’t work for them. They end up poor, as victims, on the losing side of things. But again, that’s a judgment we make from the world’s standards, from the Gospel of prosperity, where whoever has the most worldly success wins. The Gospel of Jesus undercuts this. Anyone who lives it out faithfully, within the power they possess to do that, will be blessed with something beyond material success, namely, the deeper joy of a life well-lived, which Jesus assures us is deeper, less temporal, and more lasting than any other joy. I believe in God because the Gospel works!