The Evidence of God
This is a private post. It does not show on the front page. It’s strictly here so I can share it on social media in response to certain hateful messages aimed at me.
This post is not *just* for unbelievers. Many people who claim to be Christian insist that direct communication with God and miracles ended with the New Testament apostles. That’s a ridiculous notion.
Many Christian also insist that I can’t be Christian because I accept evolution and the old age of the Universe. If you are one of those who tell me that, I say to you, you cannot make salvation conditional, and that’s exactly what you are doing.
Coincidences
Often, when a Christian mentions that they have experienced miracles, the unbeliever will declare that the believer is equating well timed coincidences with miracles.
Coincidences and miracles are not the same thing.
It’s a funny thing- the more Christ-centered one becomes, the more often those well timed coincidences happen. And when one becomes involved in ministry work that serves the needy and downtrodden, those well timed coincidences become a part of everyday life. It has a phenomenal effect on your faith, because you know that as long as you’re serving God, He’s going to make things work.
I tell about some of those well timed coincidences in the “Christians Only” section of this blog, in THIS POST.
“Coincidences” happened routinely when my mother and I had our food ministry. Grocery stores donated food to us. We would sort it into boxes and distribute them to the needy.
Over and over again, this type of scenario would happen: someone might ask something like, “If you happen to receive a bottle of lotion for eczema, could you save it for me?”. A day or two later, a bottle of eczema lotion would show up in the donations. That would be the first and last time we would get that item. That kind of thing happened so often, that we knew every time someone had a special need, that item would show up within a couple of days. Because it did happen Every. Single. Time.
Even crazier “coincidences” than what I’ve illustrated above happened during that time, but I’ll stop there.
Why yes, you could argue that these examples just happened by chance. I believe otherwise.
Miracles
Miracles are events which completely defy all laws of physics. They are extremely rare. They seldom happen to, or are observed by, unbelievers. When they do happen, it’s almost always in conjunction with some sort of ministerial or Christian-oriented charity or volunteer work.
I’ve experienced exactly three miracles. Of the three, two happened during Christian-oriented volunteer work. Of the three, only one was witnessed by another person.
Someday I will post about them in “Christians Only”, but they are not for this post. You are free to believe I am delusional, but it’s enough that I know what should be impossible actually happened.
God Speaks
It’s not an audible voice. I don’t know how to explain it, but you understand it in full sentences.
One day, my mother and I were going back home after buying some groceries. We lived out in the country, so it was a bit of a trip. While she drove, I was looking out the window at the houses scattered about along the highway.
As we passed one house, the Holy Spirit said:
The people in that house need groceries NOW!
It was one of the most urgent messages I ever got from God.
Any Christian who wants to read the rest of the story can go to “Christians Only” and find the post When God Speaks for the Hungry. Here I’ll just say, it turned out to be an older couple who had lost their income. They were down to two cans of green beans in the house and didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. My mother and I were able to feed them for a few months until they got on their feet again.
This is how it works with Christians who keep their eyes on Jesus and make themselves freely available to serve God (unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to a great many who claim to be Christian). More times than I can count, the Holy Spirit has directed me to approach someone who has a need that I can supply. Sometimes it’s a stranger, sometimes someone I know. Reciprocally, people have approached me when I have a need. Sometimes it’s a stranger, sometimes someone I know.
Then there are those remarkable experiences when the Holy Spirit gives you that sudden and urgent need to pray for someone immediately! It can happen when you’re washing dishes, or He’ll wake you up in the middle of the night to do so. It may be the next day, or several days or weeks before you run into that person and find out what happened at that minute on that day (or night). Or you may experience an emergency of your own, and the next day someone calls, or the next Sunday in church someone comes up to you, and asks, what happened? God had told them to pray for you at that crucial moment.
I could give many more types of examples, but that’s enough to illustrate why I can’t not believe in God. God manifests Himself constantly to those who make Him central to their lives.
God is Real
Many who are reading this don’t believe any of it. The minority of Christ-centered Christians who are serving as God’s hands and feet know it’s all true, because they experience it.
The unbeliever says that humans make up gods as a way to explain that which is unexplainable. How can anyone know which is the “real” God?
I know of no other god with which one can have a personal relationship. I believe God implanted into the human brain the ability to recognize Him. We need to believe in God. Weβre programmed for it. Civilizations and cultures and clans which have not met the One God will fulfil that need by making up false gods.
The unbeliever asks: Why does God let bad things happen? The answer is complex. I’ve covered it a little bit in “Christians Only”, and I will cover it more extensively in the future. But it is not the subject of this post.
One last thing. I’m not a Bible literalist, I’m a Jesus Christ literalist. Unbelievers and some Christians often demand to know how I can believe in God if I don’t take the Bible literally. Fellow Christians, go to “Christians Only” and read the post The Word of God vs. Bible Literalism to understand where I’m coming from on that issue.
All I have left to say is: God IS real, and nobody can convince me otherwise. God transcends science. You canβt put Him in a laboratory. The scientific method looks for empirically verifiable or physical traces in the world. But God is not part of the world as we know it. He resides outside of time and space and canβt be analyzed. But that He exists cannot be disputed.
