BRETT: For today’s EIB High Note we wanted to share an excerpt from a column that Rush’s niece, Christen Limbaugh Bloom, wrote about Rush and faith, the whole column of which you can read over at RushLimbaugh.com, and Rush’s own words describing his own belief in God. From Christen’s column: “Shortly after he received his diagnosis, I was texting with Uncle Rush and sent him Romans 8:28 as encouragement: ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

“He wrote me back, ‘Christen, I believe that verse to a T!’ He told me that despite some misconceptions. This verse doesn’t mean that everything that happens to us is always good, but it does mean that ‘God Himself IS GOOD’ and that because of that truth, there is ‘opportunity for good in everything that happens.’ That was Uncle Rush — always finding light amid the reality of a dark and broken world.” Here’s Rush marveling at the mystery and awe of believing and sharing a little of his own faith.

RUSH: One of my reasons for believing in God is that we, as created, have this magnificent ability to be curious and dream and imagine and to want to know whatever we want to know. But much of that we will never know. You’re gonna continue to ask, but the answers are simply not here. We’re not capable. We’re not smart enough. We don’t know enough.

Yet we have these questions. What kind of a God would create beings who can ponder all these things, such as heaven, if it didn’t exist? Would it be an ultimate cruelty, to create beings that can live their lives or try to live their lives in such a way to achieve these great things and at the end of it not be possible because it doesn’t exist. No way to prove any of this. To me, it’s faith.

But I stop and ponder these things. I think about them, and I do it in a constant state of awe over the creation of everything and gratefulness that I’m part of it, and I wonder what’s next. Because I firmly think there is. I haven’t the slightest idea what. But my dad, when I was 6 years old, told a story that I asked him why did he believe in God.

He says, “Here I am; I’m your dad. You’re 6, and I want to answer your question seriously, but you’re 6. What the heck are you gonna understand? I can’t start quoting scripture to you.” So he evolved a theory that I just shared with you, that he believed in a loving God that created all of this and presented humanity with the concept of eternal life, heaven, afterlife, however you want to refer to it — and a mechanism and means by which to achieve it.

He said to me, “I just can’t believe that a loving God would be so cruel as to create human beings who could ponder and attempt to achieve such things if they don’t exist.” He was just trying to use simple logic with me. Had I been older, he would have gone to various scripture in the Bible, which would have answered the question.

But it always stuck with me, ’cause it made sense, if you believe certain basics: loving God, God of creation. It just all made sense to me, and I actually feel very sorry for people that don’t believe in this. It’s the essence of believing that there are things much greater than yourself, and the sooner any human being learns that in life, the better off that person’s gonna be.

BRETT: You know, I’m sure that Rush and God are having some pretty lively conversations there. It’s an amazing thing to ponder, right? Because you think about what it is that comes next, but so often when you’re thinking that way, you’re thinking about the end of this. And it’s only that piece, I think, that we get from God to us that allows us to understand that that’s what we have to have. That vehicle is faith, right?

So the confidence of Rush’s convictions, when you were around him, when you heard him talk about the things he believed in — I’m talking about whether it was on the air or off the air. But if you heard him talk about the things that he believed in, he believed in those things with the concreteness of, you know, picking up an item that’s in your hand, a brick, a piece of metal, right? You’re fully confident that that’s what’s in your hand.

You’re looking at it; you’re saying, “This is this.”

That conviction is also what sustains you in many ways in your faith, because you’re confident.