My Little Devotional: "Where's Your Hard Evidence?"

Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “Going to Seed”

In an episode whose premise was a throwback to “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”, this story featured Apple Bloom hunting the “Great Seedling”–a supernatural creature said to bring an endless bountiful harvest to whoever managed to catch it. In spite of Applejack insisting that the Great Seedling was likely a myth just designed to entertain children, Apple Bloom persisted in her attempts to trap the creature, especially when encouraged by the older members of her family. Eventually, by the end of the episode, an initially-skeptical Applejack is also brought over to Apple Bloom’s side.

Two particular moments stood out to me in this episode. The first happened early. After Apple Bloom’s failed first night of trapping, strange apple patterns began to appear around the farm. While Apple Bloom took this as proof of the creature’s existence, Applejack was skeptical and noted that it could have simply been a coincidence of natural apples falling and nothing to worry about.

The second happened at the end of the episode. When it was eventually revealed the signs of the “Great Seedling” were nothing more than Big Macintosh suffering from sleep-walking, Applejack and Apple Bloom nevertheless continued to believe in the Great Seedling when another unusual pattern appeared with their carrots.

Two separate moments. One in which what looks like clear evidence is explained away rather nonchalantly. The other in which what could likely be false evidence, based on past experience, was accepted as proof. In truth, the nature of the evidence was mostly the same in both situations (at least at face value). The true difference in outcome lay in Applejack’s level of belief.

So what does all of this have to do with today’s devotional? Well, in spite of being rather out of place at present, when I was first thinking of writing this the Christmas season was drawing near, which is a pretty big time for belief. Naturally, there’s the multitudes of children who believe in Santa Claus and expect him to pay them a magical visit on Christmas Eve to leave off toys, but, even more importantly, it's one of the most important times of the year for Christians as we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So to the secular and/or non-Christian world, that time of year is considered a fairly big time for “make-believe”.

Yet while a lot of non-religious folks may get behind the Santa Claus bandwagon for their children so long as they’re young, it’s expected once they get old enough that they “grow out” of this belief and learn the truth about what’s really going on rather than continue to have faith in a magical man who brings cheer and goodwill to the world each year.

And, for some of those folks, they might wish that a lot of Christians would do the same.

While I don’t know if all secular people feel this way, I think it’s no secret that a number of more outspoken ones think the only reason Christians (or anyone religious) clings to a belief in God is because we’re cowardly or “weak”. We’re afraid of dying or uncertainty in life and therefore we cling to a faith in a god who can deliver us from both so that we can get by from day-to-day. Essentially, we’re “big kids” who are still afraid of the dark and we’ve made God and Jesus into “teddy bears” we can hug for protection. And among many of those people, when we attempt to witness or defend our faith, the big trump card that they can always drop on Christians is something along the lines of the following:

“If God is real and can do anything, then let’s see him show up right now and prove he exists.”

Basically, they demand a sign or miracle or anything right at that very second that would be completely supernatural; that would be impossible if not for God’s existence and, therefore, proves he exists. Obviously, usually that doesn’t happen, and there’s little Christians can say in defense other than quoting Deuteronomy 6:16.

Of course, Christians can offer evidence of God’s existence. They can quote a source like “Jesus Freaks” about genuine miracles and acts of deliverance. They can testify to their own experiences with addiction, depression, or danger. They can attest to times in which God spoke to them or guided their decisions, or in which their prayers were answered unexpectedly and impossibly. (One of the more unusual ones came from my father. He had a friend who once went into a more charismatic church that encouraged speaking in tongues. The friend thought this was silly and so he went in and immediately began to fake it, pretending like he was getting into everything. Soon after, a piece of the ceiling suddenly broke off and hit him on the head. )

However, these incidents can often be dismissed, just like the apples in this episode. Maybe someone just had a moment of insight rather than heard the voice of God. Maybe some stroke of luck removed that one person’s cancer in odds that were just incredibly slim. To pick a couple from “Jesus Freaks”, maybe that one man in the morgue just had a miracle recovery that caused him to regain consciousness. Or maybe those people who dug their own mass grave and were ready to be executed were spared by the local military because they just wanted to scare them. Lots of weird things are possible, after all. And in the end, a person can conclude that all of these incidents and evidence are nothing more than a series of lucky coincidences, and that not one of them proves a single thing.

And, the truth is, even if we have a miraculous experience (such as my own in which I would have gotten a tree branch through a windshield if I had been driving two seconds faster…or that me, my car, and any other drivers around survived unharmed when I fell asleep at the wheel on an Interstate), over time we might start thinking the same way. Maybe we did just get lucky. Maybe it was just an incredible coincidence after all. And I think that’s only natural, as part of the experience of Christianity is, in fact, faith.

For many Christians, they eventually conclude these are all too many coincidences and happenstances to be random and they came at too critical a time that was life or death for them and/or when they were fervently praying. They choose to have faith in God and believe that he does indeed answer prayers, and take these moments as real evidence of God’s existence.

Yet for many nonbelievers, all of this is not enough because they need a real miracle. One that’s unequivocally the power of God. And no matter how much a Christian might insist that their experience or encounter was real, or perhaps how inexplicable their own supernatural experiences might be, so long as the nonbeliever can “explain it away” then it’s not real evidence.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think the Bible gives caution on situations like this. Think back to the Old Testament, in particular the Exodus from Egypt. These were people who had seen curses, swarms of insects, darkness, and even death afflict everyone around them yet spared them. They saw pillars of fire leading them by night and watched the Red Sea get split in two so they could cross it. They spent 50 years eating bread that came down miraculously from Heaven. And yet, according to the Bible, they ended up putting God to the test ten times and continuously wanted to “give up and go back to Egypt” (Numbers 14:4, 22).

Then there’s the time of Elijah. The kings of Israel that transgressed against the Lord saw miracles such as fire coming down from Heaven and burning up sacrifices (1 Kings 18:36-39), their hands wither when they reached out to order their men to seize prophets (1 Kings 13:4-5), and the fulfillment of every warning that was made against them (2 Kings 23:16-18). And yet, they still didn’t believe or commit themselves to God. They or their descendants all reverted back to revering idols and doubting the power of God even though they had seen and heard it (2 Kings 17:19-23).

Then, of course, there was the time of Jesus. Lord Jesus performed a host of miracles for thousands. He healed people who were blind (John 9:6-7), deaf (Mark 7:31-37), and paralyzed (Matthew 9:1-8), He walked on water (Matthew 14:22-36), He turned water into wine (John 2:1-11), He raised the dead (Luke 7:11-17; John 11:1-44), He cursed trees to wither before people’s eyes (Matthew 21:18-22), and He even took a few barley loaves and fish not once but twice and caused them to multiply to feed thousands (Matthew 14:13-21; 15:29-39). And what did the religious leaders of His day say in response to all this? Show them a real sign that He came from God (Mark 8:11). Even to the point of when Jesus was crucified, they kept mocking Him with more demands that He perform a miracle so that they could believe (Matthew 27:41-42).

What do all of these examples have in common? The problem wasn’t that the signs and wonders were insufficient. The problem was that the ones watching them had already made their decision not to trust God before they witnessed them. Those departing the land of Egypt could only ever think about what was afflicting them at the moment and focused on their situation; never on the fact that God was watching them and supporting them. As for the old kings of Israel, they had already committed themselves to venerating other gods and weren’t planning on changing their minds. Finally, in the case of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, they had already conclusively decided among themselves that Jesus was not the Messiah. And if the people of the Bible had seen such signs and wonders as these and were still able to explain it all away as nothing special, then how much more easily would it be for us to do the same in the face of modern miracles?

There’s an old saying: “Seeing isn’t believing; believing is seeing.” It pertains to all sorts of experiences in life, but also to faith. All of those individuals above had already made up their minds on how things were. At that point, evidence is pointless. It will simply be altered or cast in such a way to suit the current belief. They can call forever for genuine signs or miracles, but it won’t matter–they already know what they believe and will simply reshape any “genuine” sign or miracle to suit it.

This doesn’t just apply to Christianity. Political ideologies…relationships…bosses and employees…even situations in retail stores where a customer believes that the world should bend over backward just to suit them when they’re blatantly in the wrong. It can shape how we see the world, reinforce long-standing grudges, make us hostile to try anything new, and essentially define how our lives will work out. It doesn’t take much to see why. For example, if you believe that everything you do will always be a disaster and a failure, you’ll ignore all of your successes as “luck” and focus on the first failure as proof of your belief. On the other hand, if you’ll believe you can succeed at anything no matter what sets you back, a thousand failures won’t slow you down until you reach the one success.

That’s where faith becomes so important, and how it gives rise to belief. And as you can see from the above examples, belief, far from being just the stuff of “fairy tales”, can make a huge difference in one’s outlook and life even not accounting for religion at all. It defines not only what we can become but what we decide that we will become. And, in the case of Christianity, it means life-changing differences.

If you want to see evidence or proof of God in the world, it’s out there but you have to be willing to look for it and believe that you could find it. And if you want to experience how God can change your life for the better, you have to believe he’s out there and is going to do it. Faith is one of the virtues that God demands from everyone who would follow him (Hebrews 11:6), but the good news is that faith is the only real “active step” he demands that we take. In fact, according to the Bible, he considers it an act of righteousness in and of itself (Romans 4:3-5).

Therefore, my suggested prayer for this devotional is if you’ve been sitting “on the fence” or have been wondering if there really is a higher power out there, I encourage you to take a chance on belief. Try seeing the world and living for a little while as if God does exist and cares for you. You might end up seeing things you never noticed before.

Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you for your Word, in which Lord Jesus says to all humankind: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20) Grant that we all will have open ears to hear the sound of His “knocking” and will gladly open the doors of our hearts and lives to Him. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”