IF YOU WOULD JUST ____, THEN I WOULD BELIEVE!

Good Friday to You, 
You would have thought him shy and an introvert. In most situations, he was the quietest person in the room. You might have often wondered what he was thinking. He simply chose listening as his way of engaging in the conversation. That was my Dad! 
It wasn’t that he didn’t have any stories to tell; he didn’t have indoor plumbing until he was in junior high, and he faithfully served our country in Vietnam. He just willingly listened to your story instead of sharing his. Maybe that’s why the stories he did tell are still so memorable. 
One particular story had a huge impact on my faith as a young man: 
Dad was standing in the dining room of their farm house with a piece of paper in hand. He was young, but an adult sized question had captivated his mind. The question: Does God exist? He had been raised to believe in God, but he was now old enough to wonder. 
He laid the paper on the edge of the table and declared, “God, if you are real, show me by ripping this piece of paper in half… please… um… Amen.” His prayer was genuine, respectful, and well-intentioned. He then stood in anticipation. If this God did exist and did want us to know Him, then a simple display of His powerful existence would be reasonable and quite helpful!
He waited… 
and waited… 
Nothing!!! 
The scene ends in disappointment for a young man genuinely seeking to know of the Creator of the Universe, but Dad’s story did not end there in the dining room… 
Later (though I don’t know how much later), Dad realized the futility of his request. If God had proven His existence by ripping the paper, the proof would have been short-lived. Think about it. Paper is thin. There could have been some strange, but naturally explainable, momentary event that could account for it, right? A mere paper ripping in half on the edge of a dining room table is no real proof of an eternally existing Creator of the Cosmos, right??? 
My Dad had the ability to recognize the limits of his experiment. If the paper had ripped in two, a “2 by 4” (board) would have been necessary to really prove He existed. And, if the board splintered in two…he would have next looked for a railroad tie. Because a Universe Creator would want to display His cosmic power, right??? 
My Dad knew the “experiments” would have simply gotten bigger and bigger. 
I will never forget preaching my Dad’s funeral on August 6, 2015. 
On that day, maybe more than ever before, I knew. I knew that I believed what I had been preaching to others for over twenty years. I knew that my Dad KNOWS the presence of the One True and Living God! It was an amazing experience of my faith being strengthened and emboldened. I will never forget that day. 
Can we be confident in our belief in One True and Living God? If so, how? This weekend, we are asking the question my Dad asked. Good news! There is great reason to believe. Maybe your faith has been wavering. Maybe your friend has been struggling. This weekend, we have a great opportunity to talk about evidences for our Creator. We are
invited to have faith… but it need-not-be blind faith! You can get a jump start by reading Romans 1-2 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1-2&version=ESV). 
Hope you join us this weekend, 
Pastor Michael