But, can you prove it?

Over the years I have been asked by many people if I can prove to them that God exists. I have tried to convince the enquirers using logic, persuasive argument, scientific reason, invitations to healing meetings (occasionally accepted) and indisputable visual evidence of proven healing.

I have used the argument that something can exist without our knowledge of its existence, and the principal that we can know some things without being able to lead others to that knowledge by reason alone. I have shared my experiences with many, hoping they might find that "something" they say that they saw in me, the "something" that made me different. 

I have, sadly, more often than not, failed to convince my listener. I have discovered that second hand evidence as to God's existence carries very little weight with most people, especially with those who are looking for an excuse not to believe.  

I spent many lunch time conversations over a period of five years discussing the evolution/creation controversy with a work colleague who was a "dyed in the wool" evolutionist. I countered every one of his arguments with careful research and proffered evidence of my own that eventually caused my colleague to concede, in his own words "OK, you've convinced me, we were created...so what?"

  

A shallow victory indeed, all I had achieved was to exchange his evolutionary mindset with a creationist paradigm. I had failed to lead him to a saving relationship in Christ, and regrettably, if he has not discovered Christ himself in the intervening years since we went our separate ways, left him without excuse when he eventually stands before the Judgment Seat on that great and terrible day.

I know that God exists, never doubted His existence; I have tried to hide from Him, tried to find a relationship with Him in unconventional ways, and even turned away from His grace in and upon my life, but I have never needed to prove to myself that He exists.   

One night in the winter of 1958 my parents took me to see that Hollywood epic, "The Ten Commandments" staring Charlton Heston as Moses. I had been attending Sunday School for a few years, but from that night onwards I knew that The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, was real. 

Does God exist? Does God exist for sure? There is no single sentence which can persuade the doubter or the sceptic. There is no single twenty-minute sermon which can nail down the case for God. There isn't a four hundred-page book which will prove, beyond any refutation that God is...God

There is however one word that is an absolute necessity, it's the crucial ingredient necessary to enable belief to flourish. That word is FAITH. 

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6 NKJV 

For most people this is a real "catch 22" situation; to believe in God it's necessary first of all to have the faith to believe in Him!

From whence comes that faith? 

I have  friend who found that faith in the bowels of a Royal Navy nuclear submarine, deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean when God roused him into action, action the ultimately prevented a disaster. I have another friend who found faith when he, watching his mother die in the Oncology Ward at his local hospital, asked the chaplain to pray for her. Yet another friend found the faith to believe when he called out to God, as his marriage was heading to oblivion. Almost every "testimony" that I have heard from those who have found faith has a central theme. God responded to their cry of help in their hour of need and deposited "faith" within their hearts.   

Some might say that these people needed a crutch at a time of personal distress... well I have seen plenty of people turn to that other "crutch", alcohol, at a time of distress and all I can say is that I have not seen their lives, marriages, families restored in the same way as those who "found God"... quite the opposite. 

10 years ago I took the funeral of a life-long friend who turned to the bottle as his life spiraled out of control. We grew up together as teenage boys, came from very similar backgrounds, I married into his extended family, but somewhere along the way we walked dis-similar paths. He turned his back on the God he nebulously knew as a boy, and never found his way back. 

    

So does it take a crisis to find the faith to believe?  

No, not at all; evidence for God's existence is all around us. The unique beauty of the world we call home is evidence of our Creator. The calm and tranquility we feel when we're sitting next to a fresh water brook, watching a beautiful sunset, the joy in holding a new-born, is evidence to the beauty and love which the world was created with. The absolute intricacy with which the universe works also speaks to the existence of God. The intricate details by which protein is metabolized by DNA to form sequences and code which translate to who we are or even the balance of the universe in which nearly infinite planets and moons orbit nearly infinite stars speak of His presence.
 

In this digital age Google has made it even easier for us to find that evidence...search "evidence for God's existence" and you find 26,500,000 pages, Google finds more than 10,700,000 pages for the query "scientific evidence for God's existence" More than 150,000,000 pages exist for the search term "is God real proof". But little of this will convince someone who does not want to accept the evidence... hence the often necessity for a "crisis conversion".  

The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness, but is long-suffering toward us, not purposing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9 MKJV