Practical Evidence Of God's Existance
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
- Psalm 34:8 (ESV)
Biblical faith is never blind. God does not ask us to trust Him with no evidence. He has revealed enough about Himself through what He has created for anyone willing to use his own mind to see. Scepticism puts up blinders, but honest and diligent inquiry takes them down.
For those of us who do trust in God, He reveals Himself, especially His goodness, even more. Much of this comes about by seeing Him answer our prayers. I have seen plenty of answers to prayer, more than enough to convince me that not only does God exist, but that He cares for me and those around me. Here's a few examples:
I've misplaced my keys about 3 times in the past 6 years or so. They're important because I have not only my own keys but also my church and work keys. I always find them, but only after I ask God to show me where they are. The last time this happened, I looked "everywhere" for 2 weeks and couldn't find them. So I finally gave in and asked God for help. Less than three minutes later, my mind on something else already, I went to my closet for something unrelated and I "just so happened" to see them staring me in the face. They were dangling in my safe door lock where I put them 2 weeks earlier. I should have prayed first!
My stepson, Sean-Dale, is a relatively new believer. He lost his wallet a couple of years ago walking back to where he was living. It had an important ID card in it that he couldn't lose. Convinced that God would return it to him if asked, I told Sean-Dale how God showed me what I lost when I prayed, and I told him to ask God to have it returned back to him. A few days later he got the ID card back in the mail. (Not the whole wallet - I guess that wasn't important.) This blew his socks off! He hadn't heard of God answering prayers like that before. He never thought he would see that card again.
I used to live in a single-wide mobile home in an RV park in the main part of town. I got married, and the place was too small for my wife and I. So we got another place elsewhere in town. I was under agreement to the RV park owners to remove the mobile home when I left, so we had it moved to our property.
We decided to set up the mobile home as a free guest house ministry for people who got stranded in town (no gas, no money, etc) and other transients. So we hooked up water, sewer, and electric, and furnished it. The last item of furniture we needed was a sleeper sofa.
One or two Sundays later, a stranger from out of town, who we never saw before (or since), visited our church and asked if anyone needed a new sleeper sofa for free... it was sitting in the back of his pickup truck!
In this case, we hadn't even begun praying for a sofa... I don't even think it would have occured to us. But God knew what we needed and provided. And now it sits in the living room like it belongs there!
One of the men at our church has an apartment in Reno. He spent a long time trying to rent it out a couple of years ago, but couldn't due to some "unbearably" loud neighbors. He considered it a totally impossible situation. So he finally decided to ask God for help, ... and God sent him a deaf tenant! Yes, God has a sense of humor!
Being part of a small church in a small town, it is hard to get help with various ministries. There are not enough workers. So, wanting to minister to our children, we asked God for workers. This resulted in a large group of youth from Bakersfield coming to Beatty to work with our children for a week. They said they would serve in whatever way we asked, so we asked them to do a Vacation Bible School, which they did, along with other things. Separately, Larisa Craig also came from Big Pine to work with the youth, and she still comes to Beatty regularly, sometimes once a week. In both of these cases, these people travel hundreds of miles to serve, all in answer to prayer! We didn't ask them to come, we asked God to send them (Matthew 9:37-38), and He provided.
Practical evidence for the existance and goodness of God abounds!
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men!
- Psalms 107:8 (ESV)
All content written by Andrew Bernhardt unless otherwise noted. Site hosted on lunarpages.com.
Topic viewed 210 times since 2009-08-25 09:40:39.
Last updated by System on 2009-09-01 01:06:40.
Several years ago I started praying for my pastor (Jeff Taguchi) that he would know Christ better - that Jesus would reveal Himself to him more. In less than 2 weeks, Jeff told the church that he felt Jesus was revealing Himself to Him more. Jeff used the exact same wording that I prayed. He had never said this before. This was one of my many "secret" prayers that I enjoy seeing God answer openly. I never did tell Jeff about this.
My wife is also an answer to prayer. I was prepared to die a bachelor, but I had asked God for a wife, and several years before I met Wanda, I had received some indications that that prayer would be answered. God brought her to Beatty as a co-worker, and I found that she was everything I had asked for (and more), yet nothing that I expected! And I was also what she had prayed for. We'll be celebrating 10 wonderful years this coming Friday, and while we're different in many ways, we've never had an argument! This is the result of trusting in God to work in His way and time!
Jeff