Because when I have been on my knees, broken, without hope, looking in the mirror at the man who had lost his North and his identity, shouting out God where are you, he has held me close and carried me.

As I stood over the bed of my dying mother, pleading for her life with a God that I had been running from for close to 20 years, he answered my pleas audibly with a voice that said ‘your mother will be alright.’  Then he called her home to Heaven.  I was so angry because I could not see that she was truly ‘alright,’ for eternity.  A promise he has made perfectly clear as I have invited him to rule my life.

When I shouted out that Thursday evening at the breakfast table in my empty house after I had run all those who cared about me away, intending to kill myself with that loaded .357 Magnum S&W Model 27, he heard me and answered me with the beautiful words “this is not the plan that I have for your life.”

When, drunk in a bar just weeks after intending to kill myself, he brought a broken and incredibly genuine Megan into my life.  He brought me the person who needed me.  Who would meet my needs and would build a life and family with me despite the broken man that I was and that I am.  A miracle too impossible to reconcile that I must simply accept.

I believe in God because the miracles of my life are simply too systematic and planned to ignore or cheapen with the assignment of chance.  Just too many wonderful lows and unjustified highs.  Too many pull-backs from the edge.  Too many lavish gifts of love and joy.  Too many irreconcilable rewards for a man deserving of nothing.  I believe in God because the miracle of a mushroom that will grow overnight.  Having watched our 3 children be born and realizing that I have witnessed what man can never create or duplicate. 

I believe scripture because I believe in the One who breathed the words as guidance, correction, hope, promise and ultimate love of the sacrifice of His Son, and most importantly his Son’s victory over death as he walked out of the wretched tomb.  I believe that Jesus looked me squarely in the face as he hung on that cross and said, “Myron, 1964 years from now when you are born, I will be with you and will carry you through life’s highs and lows for the purposes that my Father has planned for you.”  I believe Jesus rubs his hands together, touching the scars from Satan’s failed attempt to kill hope and says, “Myron, I would do it all again for you.  But, I don’t have too.  Once was enough for eternity.”

I believe in God because of the vastness of the Cosmos and the intimacy of my relationship with him.  While immeasurable space is controlled in ways too marvelous to cheapen by writing off as a bang, he hears me.  He call me.  He assures me.  He allows me to continue to make mistakes, knowing that these lessons will be someone else’s promise like I have been gifted.

I believe in God because I know him personally.  I have felt his breath.  I have heard his voice.  I have experienced the comfort of lying in his arms.  I believe in God because there is not other way to reconcile all that I have been blessed and entrusted with.  I have survived the lies and futility of worldly pursuits that should have killed me.  I have been purified by the fires of life that burned the impurities out and hardened this child of the only true King, Jesus.  I believe in God because of the love he has lavished on me through the people and circumstances of my life.

I believe in God because of Grace too sweet to understand and Mercy given over and over and over by the never-ending love of the only God.  

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”  2 Corinthians 1:20 NIV