Faith in a God who delivers and rescues is wishful thinking. It’s just an emotional crutch for those who need it.
Haven’t you heard or maybe even said something like that before? But stop for a moment and consider the notion. Isn’t it more likely that a supernatural Helper has visited us than the opposite?
In the Driver’s Seat
I think that the person who claims that there really is a God who hears and answers prayer, who can and does invade our world to help, heal, rescue, and save, is in the driver’s seat. On the other side, no one can know for certain that there is no God, that there’s no help in the world. They can know only that they have no personal experience of this God.
For instance, it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to claim that there is a God because they have definitely experienced his help. In the case of the atheist or skeptic, they would have to know all that there is to know and to have been in every corner of the universe at every moment in history to say confidently that there is no God.
But the believer would have to know only that last Tuesday at 3:15 p.m., after a brief cry to God for help, some invisible, intelligent Helper came and rescued them in the most remarkable, impossible, and creative way. It fulfilled all the criteria in their mind for what would constitute a divine rescue and happened in such a manner that all the logical probabilities of doubt were removed.
Okay, they still might be mistaken in some way regarding their thinking about the rescue, but on the other hand they may really have experienced the presence of a caring, rescuing God after all. If these believers compare their deliverance with the accounts of thousands of others who have witnessed the same things, they come to the conclusion that it’s not just their imagination.
Less is More
In other words, those who claim that some supernatural Being helped them out of their jam simply had to know less. Sometimes it takes very little knowledge or learning to know some of the most profoundly personal or deepest truths in life. The simple day-laborer could know more about God than the distinguished professor of theology or philosophy who lectures every afternoon at the university.
The plain, incontrovertible facts are these:
- We have an enormous body of evidence testifying to the fact that God exists and is highly active in the lives of his creatures.
- This evidence has existed for thousands of years, covering a great many cultures, languages, diverse geographical areas, backgrounds, and personality types.
- It comes in the testimonies of people in the Bible, church history, hymnology, missionary history, and contemporary witnesses in the newspapers, in the evening news, and from our neighbors and friends.
- The genuine church is a gathering of such people who unite to enjoy and celebrate this reality of an ever-present rescuing God.
- These people include not only lifelong believers, but also previously hardened skeptics and professors of philosophy and psychology.
In unison they affirm that in every conceivable type of danger or distress, they cried out to God for relief and help was provided. It came tailor-made for their particular situation—an absolutely convincing proof of delivering power from God the Creator. It might have been a rescue and reversal, or his peace and comfort as he walked with them through their life storm. The evidence may be rejected or accepted, loved or hated, but it’s clearly there all the same.
Atheism—the Ultimate Blind Leap of Faith
So when we hear any objections regarding the existence of God, it all sounds like merely uninformed protests from the inexperienced. In fact, atheism could be considered the ultimate blind leap of faith that makes the denial of God’s existence the emotional crutch for the atheist.
To be convinced of God’s presence, all you have to do is compare your experience of rescue with those many thousands of rescues already on record—God’s power is just the same as it always was. Within this enormous family of faith and its long history of these common shared experiences of its Lord, the reality of our mighty, saving God becomes confirmed many times over.
Share Your Story
If you have a rescue story you’d like to share, please write it in the comments!
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