Help!
From whence cometh my help?
I was going to comfort her, but her embrace comforted me. Whatever I said, she answered: You can’t go through something like this without Christ. What she and her family were going through was losing a child too soon. Many people at the memorial service understood Who sustained my friend; so many though, wept with no hope – and no faith.
That was hard to see.
A skeptic says we can’t know if God exists, an atheist declares God does not exist. I am getting closer to that moment when I will know. But, I will be unable to testify what I find out. How I know today that God exists is faith.
It was a gift, I chose to open; well, I ripped off the wrapping and took it out and tried to understand it, use it and give it away all at the same time.
I backed off a lot of people who could not see what I saw when I heard God would restore my barns . . . the ones the locusts had destroyed. (Joel 2:25)
Scared of death, and being a failure, I knew something had ravaged my soul . . . and I knew I couldn’t get back all I’d squandered. I had never heard that God knew that much about people.
He has repaid me a hundred fold what I didn’t deserve; He has asked me to give what I know only He could have supplied. And He stays around when I slam every door and window to my heart that I can to keep Him out.
Can I prove any of this?
No.
But, the moments when God has been closest – most real – it wasn’t the logic in that moment that pressed Him home to me. Nor, have the times I have sensed His care always been fairy-tale happy fun times. Many times it is a sense of unflinching companionship when I’ve been willing to look at my stupid choices. The impression I couldn’t back Him off; He wasn’t going to let go, even with all my messes.
My Help Cometh from the God Who is Up all Night! (Psalm 121)
No, I can’t prove any of it. Like the woman at the well, though, all I can do is keep inviting folks to come and see the One who told me everything I ever did . . . ( John 4)
It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.
. . . In the last analysis, you cannot pontificate, but only point. A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, “I can’t prove a thing, but there is something about his eyes, and his voice. There’s something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross—the way he carries me.” (Listening to Your Life, by Frederick Buechner, pages 268-269)
And I can pray that the hope one family offers while mourning – while being carried — will help open the eyes of some to see the gift of faith God is offering.
You might like to listen to this: The Choice of Faith
What to do with WORRIES!