Evidence

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041416.cfm

ACTS 8:26-40

JN 6:44-51

Jesus said to the crowds:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day.
It is written in the prophets:
They shall all be taught by God.

A nephew of mine writes periodically, updating me on his fascinations and insights into everything from racing cars to time travel. His communications are spontaneous and wonderful. These treasured moments for me follow his time spent with friends or family, and a question comes up that he would usually discuss with his father. But his father died a few years back. I’m blessed to have him consider me a worthy surrogate.

Our latest email string brought up the subject of my surprising (to him) long-lasting conviction regarding the divinity of Jesus and his awesome promise and subsequent fulfillment of our eternal life with him in heaven. Instead of being annoyed by my certainty, or skeptical, my nephew is wonderfully supportive, mixed with a cautious curiosity.

“How do you ‘know’ all this?” he asked me, finally. He has tapped danced around broaching my convicted faith for some time, not really bluntly asking me about it until recently. 

I explained that faith conviction comes from evidence. I used two terms to describe my certainty — theological fingerprints and historical ballistics. (Joanne and I have been watching a lot of murder mysteries lately.) I am convinced that accumulated data has made it impossible for me to ignore that God loves me, regardless of my problems, foibles, and wayward dalliances. God’s fingerprints are all over the protections that have surrounded me and my family. The holes fired through the dams that I have built up show all his markings. God has never given up on me.

My nephew was told about my adult conversion to Christianity by his dad. I was raised a Catholic, but an adult commitment requires adulthood. I had talked to his father about my faith, back then, and he was a good listener, a brother-in-law who took brotherhood very seriously. The best of men. My nephew asked how I could have known with certainty, to have such a strong faith back in my 20’s, when I was a young man, practically a boy. I was barely in my 20’s, actually. Just twenty-one when I had a personal conversion experience that changed my life’s direction.

I haven’t ever thought that twenty-one is too young to come to certain faith in God, but many of today's budded adults think twenty-one is too fuzzy on the cheeks for clarity (budded meaning thirty and forty year olds). The budded take on their wandering in search of faith like they are on a forced march, it seems. Apparently, the convictions of the young cannot be permanent, and by the time a person is within a few year’s grasp of forty the wandering pattern becomes a permanent state. My nephew used the word "wary" to describe his typical assessment of twenty-one year old steadfast minds. I think any person of certain faith, of any age, elicits the same reaction. The wariness (that’s my assessment) is difficult to overcome.

It’s a fair question, though. How can a barely adult person be so sure that God is loving and alive and speaks to us? I think behind his question is the wandering soul practice of holding up a “faith meter” to those perceived to be haughty or perhaps too effervescent about their beliefs. The faith meter is a combination of a lie detector and a breathalyzer. It’s hard to use such a meter on someone that’s held onto their faith for more than four decades, though. The old folks of faith are largely cured of haughtiness and all the effervescence has been drummed out of them. Consequently, my nephew’s caution centered more on whether: a., I was a stubborn fella, unwilling to let go of an idiotic youthful decisive certainty; or b., I was nuts. 

I look at the issue of certain faith a bit differently. Forty-five years later I'm just older, not any more certain, really. Revelations can be questioned, but when the revelations are substantiated, proven to us to be true, in the face of all kinds of questioning, trauma, and even torture, then we are not nuts or blind. We’re just properly formed. Aren’t we?

My youthful origin of faith came from a similar wariness to that of my nephew. I explained to God that my reticence to believe in him was due to the very lack of evidence that others told me was real to them. Their insistence seemed incomplete, and murky. Accepting God because someone else had a personal, communicative relationship still left me on the sidelines. My nephew suggested this is a common malady for folks at any adult age. I didn't know who God was when I was twenty-one. So, I asked for clarity, agreeing to be open to God's voice, however that came to me. 

That idea, asking God for clarity and giving God a chance, wasn’t my own, by the way. A complete stranger came up to me and suggested, rather boldly, that I should probably do that. “Just ask him,” he said.

I did. In no time at all I experienced a communication that only I would understand. That is, only something that I would believe as authentic. God took it slow with me, because he knows me. Pretty soon I was captured, encapsulated actually, eagerly bound up by the creator. That is what is true for each of us. God communicates very personally, in a way where we will see the evidence. Oddly, few people allow God to be so free to do that. Some might say I was lucky or beyond my years. I don’t think so.

It's not brains, skill, luck, geography, politics, age, money, muscles, legacy or microphones that allows God to reveal himself. It's not diversity or open-mindedness. I know it is not wisdom or religion, either. Allowing God to make himself known is more about honesty and courage than anything else. I know that, because dishonesty and cowardice brought me to desire a better me. I did not like myself. I wasn't selfless in my request, either. Telling God to speak to me smacks loudly of selfishness. “Convince me,” I practically told him. What an obstinate, egregious kind of person I was.

This is the first proof of my evidence of a loving God. God doesn't hold back his revelations until we are good boys and girls, or clean-shaven men and loving women. He takes us like we are. Selfish, dishonest, or cowards. Maybe all three.

Nothing in this is new. Nothing said so far is startling. Faith is a gift, raining down on us in brightly colored wrapping, constantly. It’s packaged into the air that we breathe. Faith is not "believing in spite of the lack of evidence." Faith is built upon evidence. To some, that statement may be new. 

Faith is not agreeing to follow a silent, potentially non-existent God. That's gambling. That’s guessing with a large helping of hope. It’ll probably pay off, by the way, but not all of us are gamblers. I don’t recommend that approach. It’s dishonest and cowardly. Like I said, it’ll probably work anyway, but sheesh. Haven’t we all had enough of dishonesty? Aren’t we sick of being cowards?

“Hey, heaven is just like we imagined isn’t it? How’d you come to believe?” Long pause. “Uh, I didn’t. I rolled the dice.”

I didn't have faith when I asked God to make himself known to me. Obstinacy or boldness is not faith. I wanted certainty, in a way that would seal the deal. I wanted to be instructed and convinced. I didn't want to be a waffling, worthless person. But, I needed a reason to be faithful, to a God that mattered because he could be known. Plus, I wanted a God that would love me even as I stood before him, waffling and worthless. That’s how I saw it. My youthful arrogance took me in the right direction, and God grabbed me.

Faith came afterward. Faith came by following through, acting upon the evidence, in spite of the consequences. The consequences of evidence is that God is actually going to speak to me and we would chat and I would know his mind. A lot of folks have the opportunity of faith at an early age. My faithfulness to God has been sketchy, and it is still in development.

Now, of course, if you try this out, and let God convince you, scriptures will probably be involved (if not altogether a necessity for most of us). God's ways of clarifying his existence, however, and his personal involvement in our tiny, insignificant lives will include lots of other stuff, too. All of this other stuff mounts up to the evidentiary pile that we can't dispute, or cast off. Look at the Ethiopian in today’s reading from Acts. He was reading Isaiah, and Philip asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian’s answer tells us all we need to know about the evidence that God provides. We need to have brothers and sisters in Christ available to instruct us.

“How can I unless someone instructs me?” the Ethiopian replied.

Philip was not an outlier. Each of us have had Philips show up on cue, but we have been blind. Some of the Philips who’ve been sent our way cringed at the suggestion of helping us and found something else to do. Evidence will require doggedness. The simple-minded, trusting, and innocent have a much better shot at recognizing the obvious. The wary are, well … wary.

For each of us the evidentiary pile will be a different size. The stronger we are at flattening piles or pushing them aside, or putting our own junk on top, the larger the pile will probably need to be. We'll only accept certain parts of the pile in the beginning. But that's enough. No, really. That's enough. But, it won't be enough, if we are honest and courageous. And, honesty and courage is what we get from our God relationship.

Faith doesn't begin when the evidence has mounted enough to drop us to our knees, either. That's simply patent awareness. Faith begins when we accept the consequences of our relationship with a living, engaging, teaching, loving God. Faith begins when we listen to God's undeniable participation in our everyday life, and then we decide to go both with God and see all things through God’s eyes. We will surely fail, but our faith is the decision to go for it.

The entire thing for me has been logical because my faith has been based upon evidence. Perhaps there are those who God secretly expects to believe and know him without a whit about who he is. God did not expect that from me. (Thank you, thank you, thank you .... )

I am subsequently and consistently more and more enlightened. I know what wisdom is. It's fabulous. I'm still a broken, mostly blind, too trusting, obstinate and sinful person, but decidedly more and more a better friend to God. I am a little less frightened, and so at peace; and I am a much better student of his Word than I ever expected. Honesty and curiosity will be the hallmark of my relationship with God for all eternity. I will never stop being enlightened. It’s a part of the fulfilled promise from Jesus.

Nonetheless, as I find myself still very much in the dark, I know who I am is enough. It is always enough. But, honestly? I want to know more. I want to be more ....