A lil’ old Lady sits in the front pew at church every Sunday morning. She hasn’t always sat there. In fact, she used to be a prostitute, a way, way back in the day.
Across town, Gerald is getting ready to jump up and down, and quite a few times; just because he can. You see he hasn’t always been able to. He was diagnosed with a rare and extremely aggressive form of cancer. By the time he made it to the doctor with the ache that was spreading from his legs to almost everywhere, he was told he was too late. He was also told that they were going to amputate both legs in an attempt to save his life, but that there really wan’t any chance of success, and the decision was his…
What do these two have in common? Well, way, way back in the day, when the lil’ old lady wasn’t so old, her occupation had left her alone, shunned by family and friends, strung out on drugs, and about to loose her Daughter to Social Services. She finally broke down and cried out to Jesus, that if he were listening, to please help her out of this mess. When she stood up, her first thought was that God wouldn’t help her. God couldn’t. She had to have a thousand dollars by 5pm the same afternoon. She started to cry again when there was a knock at the door. She went to find a stranger standing on the porch, and the stranger said this…
“God loves you, and has heard your prayers. Your daughter is safe, and so are you”. The stranger handed her a check for a thousand dollars, and said, “The Lord told me to give you this”.
Then he was gone. This was way, way back in the day, and in no way was this her first and last encounter with the divine love some of us know well. Her daughter sits beside her with her granddaughter. Without writing it all down, lets just say the devil went right to work on her and her daughter became a prostitute years after the knock at the door. Without writing all of it down, we’ll just say the whole life exchange that led her here this morning is littered with many miracles.
Gerald is plugging up his keyboard. He’s the praise and worship team leader at his church. He broke down a cried out to Jesus when he reached his turning point, just as the lil’ old Lady did, and just as millions of other people have done.
What makes their cry different than someone else that cried out, and got no answer at all? Simple; what do the scriptures say? To “cry out, or seek Him with a whole heart”. This is the difference.
Gerald was a skeptic all his life. His sister was already in church, and during his ordeal mentioned prayer. She said it didn’t matter what the doctors said, and that if he would turn to God, that God would heal him. This infuriated Gerald, and he cursed God, if there were one. His sister never lost faith. You see, Gerald didn’t know God, and his sister? Lets just say although this was a trial of her faith, it was by no means her first rodeo.
Long story short. Gerald was convicted, cried out, healed, and convinced, and in that order. He now not only knows the Lord, he loves Him, and sings about it every day. You see, after he cried with his whole self, God heard him, as He does everyone who ever did. Us silly little church folk get together each Sunday around the world and sing songs people wrote hundreds of years ago about the same God and savior, who was doing the same things way, way back in the day. Where was I? Oh yea, Gerald…
Seems the nurses came to prep him for surgery, and found him jumping up and down with his sister. The room was full of lil’ old Ladies, and the pastor, and some folk from his sister’s church. They were all jumping up and down. Long to short again, Gerald had people pray, and lay hands on him. He felt the pain leaving his body, then his legs. He felt like jumping up and down. His doctors are baffled. Seems the cancer mysteriously disappeared, along with any signs of it ever even being there.
As I have already said, churches are full of people that, after having their own meeting with the Savior, now go out and help others find their way that are lost. They, like bezillions of us, get to see these miracles quite often, and share the joy we now have with each other. Each new day brings a new beginning, and a new something that we find makes us want to jump up and down all the more. To those of us that love the Lord, and know the Lord, this is ordinary, and nothing supernatural as far as we are concerned.
Atheist often scream for empirical evidence from Christians. They claim we have no evidence, and that these experiences do not count. If you encounter these atheist, and notice they seem a might unreasonable, there’s a reason they do.
They’re delusional. Ironically, they say we are. Lets look at delusion by definition…
delusion:
A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or other effects of perception.
Delusion – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, is the definition as it is used in Psychiatry.
So which of the two are holding a false belief without any evidence, and in spite of evidence that to the contrary; (or questions) the belief is present? Atheist, or Gerald and the lil’ old Lady?
Does the lil’ old Lady have evidence for her belief? Was the man at the door real? Was the check for a thousand dollars real? Is any of the other things she has seen or heard real? Sure they are.
Is Gerald dead? As Gerald now heals as he was healed, and gets to watch the look of astonishment creep across a new face when they are confronted with the impossible actually coming to pass right before their very eyes…is any of it real? Are any of the medically documented unsolved mysteriously vanishing cases real? Sure they are. Do the doctors write in their reports that God healed these people? Sure they do?
No, in fact, they do not.
So do these people hold a belief without any evidence? I think not.
Do the atheist that believe there is no God have any evidence to support their belief? Again, I think not.
The next time an atheist ask you for evidence, point them to this, and ask them just what would they have the lil’ old Lady hand them, that they may put in their lil’ old test tubes. Is God going to show up for their lil’ experiments? Can’t say, but I wouldn’t, if I were Him.
So one group holds a false belief without evidence to support their belief, and one group has their evidence. We sing about it every Sunday, and if you are an atheist, you’re invited to come and sing with us. If not, consider yourself served. You now have no excuse, because I know the truth, and just told you.
You’re on your own with this info, and good luck with your lil’ science kit.