Hey, Everybody! I was thinking about something early this morning that turned my thoughts toward you. I’d just been going over my memory verses and started reflecting on the whole journey of faith. The ups and downs, the twists and turns. The pain and then sometimes the dullness that scared me twice as much as the pain. Then something would happen and revival would come and back in the saddle I’d go again. His Word would jump back off the page at me and I’d feel fully alive and wonder why I’d doubted. I rewound even further back to the years that I hoped so much that this God I’d been told about was real. I needed Him so badly. I found my heart believing and I deliberately placed my faith in Him. Then I thought about a specific season through which I went from hoping He was real to knowing He was real. Don’t get me wrong. I am still challenged to faith in many other matters and always will be, because “faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen” and “without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:1,6) But I seldom sit around and wonder if God exists and still speaks and still acts. Like you, I still see as in a mirror darkly and I wonder why some things happen the way they do and how it will all work out and what some things in Scripture really mean. But “I know the One I have believed in.” (2 Timothy 1:12)
We have so many new believers and even a sizable population of seekers in this community. Praise God, we do! We need to question our effectiveness the moment we don’t. So many of them would probably like to ask us how we “know” this God is real. So I ask those of you today to whom this applies to share a season in which you became convinced to the marrow of your bones that this is FOR REAL.
Think it through and be deliberate in your testimony. Please limit your story to one meaty paragraph so that we can read as many as possible. I can hardly wait. Let’s testify, girlfriends.
I’m so thankful for God’s promises. I remember a season of severe trials about 10 years ago. I needed to know more about God’s holiness and majesty…and was I really that precious to Him as the Bible says. Crying on my bed I remembered from Scripture that God knows every tear we cry. Wow! By filling my soul with His Word and prayer, God became the marrow for my bones and the air that I breathe. I wished I could have learned this easier, but He is faithful and knows us inside and out and knows what we need. Praise His Holy Name!!!
I have 2 but will put only the short one. August 2008 my 77 year old father was in the Memphis hospital and not doing well. He lived in MS and I live in KS and recieved the call at 6am from my sister that August Sunday morning that dad would not survive the day. I had already missed the plane to Memphis from KS so I jumped in my car and headed to the Memphis hospital.
About an hour into the drive I began crying very hard and had to pull over. You see, even though we had attended church my whole life and my mom and I are Christians, my dad was not. I asked God could dad just hold on until I got there so I could speak to him again about God. After about half an hour of hard crying I suddenly felt a sense of comfort unlike anything I have ever felt. It was like being wrapped in a warm cocoon. I immediately sensed that God was with me, that I was not going to make it to Memphis before dad died and that dad was saved. It was an absolute sense of peace about the whole thing. I was traveling through Little Rock when I received the call that dad had died. That week while at mom’s, she told me that dad had accepted Christ just a year or two before. Hallelujah! I knew then that God had given me a sense of peace in the car that dad was going to be with Him that day. I still look back on that knowledge as an absolute surety that God hears and cares.
Anita,
My Mom just passed away on my Birthday, March 30,2011. I believe without a doubt God saved her in the last few hours of her life. I believe it started with me at the Altar the Sunday before crying out to God for her Salvation. I am so thankful for His faithfulness! This Joy and Peace I have experienced is just like you explained, yet so unexplainable! I couldn’t have received a better Birthday present than my Mom going home to be with our Savior for all of Eternity 🙂
This has been a rough month for me, my father died 3-11-11 and my mother was diagnosed with a 7 mm nodule in her breast. I am praying for strength and comfort. My small group is doing the Jesus the One and Only study now, but in our last study, Revelation, Beth mentioned that she wears a bracelet with a verse inscribed upon it. At the time, I really liked the verse, but now can’t find it in my book. Is there some way I can find that verse again? Thanks so much.
1. There is a trial we can’t handle alone, a humbling, then a seeking for God.
2. God changes our mind (a revelation?), a realization, then a shift in our thinking – a change of perspective.
I don’t have a story about when He became real to me because He always has been.
I accepted Christ 52 years ago today. (March 29, 1959) Boy, that makes me sound old, doesn’t it? I was eight, nearly nine years old, and yes. I knew what I was doing. Not a doubt in my mind.
Over the years I’ve come to know Him more and more. I’ve proved Him over and over.
I didn’t just accept my parents’ religion, I have a relationship with the creator of the world.
I. Know. Him.
The depth of the relationship has changed, and those periods of growth aren’t fun.
Twenty years ago in May, six members of my family were in a wreck with a drunk driver. Five died, one became a quadraplegic. He only drew us closer.
Like my dad said, “Before that day, I’d done a lot of praying on my back. The wreck and Amy’s life in the balance between life and death sent me to my knees.”
We learned to thank God for His perfect will when what we really wanted was to dictate to Him–“Make Amy well and those doctors who keep telling us she’s going to die wrong!”
Amy is alive today and has had two more daughters. (She lost two–one 3-years-old and one due to be born three days earlier) in the wreck.)
We KNOW God is in control and we know His love at a greater depth than ever.
What can I say? I’m about as boring as it gets.
1)I had lost a button to a “borrowed” maternity jumper from my sister-in-law. I had noticed it for a few weeks but hadn’t taken the time to look for it. I was hanging laundry on the line when I remembered about the button and stopped and prayed, asking God to help me find the button. I opened my eyes, head still bowed and there, at my feet was that button.
2)We were at a car dealership looking at a car that I did not want to buy, but my husband wanted to go look at it. We had already decided on one elsewhere that I did want. As we sat there it was like this overwhelming warmth/joy/peace and I started to chuckle outloud. I told my husband, “I want the other car, but I know God wants us to have this one.”
I have known about God since as far back as I can remember andI have known Jesus as my Savior since I was a young girl of 8, but I didn’t really know down to the marrow of my bones and without doubt that God was real until I was 18 years old. It was then that I had an encounter with Jesus Christ that forever changed the course of my life. I was a freshman in college, just a couple of months into my first semester. As a teen I had struggled greatly with my faith. A victim of childhood sexual abuse, I wondered why an all-powerful God didn’t step in to stop what had happened. Because I had never known my father and so many other men in my life had betrayed my innocence, I had trouble understanding my Heavenly Father. Due to this lack of understanding and the guilt and shame I felt as a result of the abuse, I thought that while God, if He truly was real, loved me as a part of the world, He could never love me individually. I went on this way until a crisis landed me in the deepest pit of depression I had ever experienced. For weeks I couldn’t even get out of bed. Finally, I decided that the only way to end my pain was to end my life. I planned to take all the pills my roommate and I had in our room while she was in class and hoped it would be enough. Just as I started to take the first couple of pills, she burst into the room. She told me that she “had a feeling” I was going to harm myself. I then realized that I didn’t want to die, but the depression was still paralyzing me from living. I called a Christian friend and her advice was to “find a Bible verse and hold onto it for dear life”. I was less than thrilled, but for the first time in years I opened my Bible and began to seek after the Lord. I cried out to Him, at first in anger, then in desperation, and suddenly I received a message so clearly in my spirit that I turned around to see who had come into the room. The voice said, “Nahum 1:7”. I had no idea what Nahum 1:7 said – I wasn’t even sure where the book of Nahum was in the Bible! I turned the pages with trembling hands until I found the verse. I was blown away by what I read : “The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble, and He cares for those who trust in Him.” I knew in that moment that God Himself had spoken directly to me – that He cared about me and what I was going through, and that He was indeed REAL! I immediately fell on my face before Him and He began a transformation in me that has continued to this day. My life will never be the same because of that amazing encounter – to the praise and glory of God!
One Sunday night, I stayed home from church. I was very depressed, and stressed. My family left me home by myself and I wrote my suicide note. (I realize that some people believe that this is the unpardonable sin) But as I got the pill bottle, I laid back on the bed, and with every fiber of my being I felt Jesus wrap his loving arms around me and fell off to sleep. My husband came home and we talked and I got help the next morning. I praise God every day for his loving arms that rocked me to sleep that night.
My moment was when I went from being in a wheel chair, and telling the Lord that I would still preach His Word even if I had to from a wheel chair. And when with in a couple of weeks the Lord answered not just my prayers for healing but so many others prayers for me, I was walking again. And I know that the Lord let me go through this to let me see that He is Really Real.
Love n the Lord,
Rev. Kim Justice
Our small group is doing the Bible Study “Jesus the One and Only” and In the videos, Beth reads several different out takes that is put into like it was Mary talking and John the Baptist and etc. We were wondering if there was a way we could get copies of each of the ones that she read. Several of us have really been touched by these parts and are enjoying this study. We only have 4 more weeks left.
Thanks so much for allowing the Lord to use you to reach other women in the way that you do.
Love n the Lord,
Rev. Kim Justice
I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 4 years old, and I’ve always known that He is. He reveals Himself to me in big and small ways. Like yesterday, I was crying and praying and just feeling so low. I had put my ipod on shuffle, praying for a song that would make me feel better. This might sound like nonsense to someone who doesn’t know this feeling, but “Suzy Q” came on. That was one of my nicknames when I was a little girl. And I knew it was from Him yesterday. “Oh Suzy Q, oh Suzy Q, baby, I love you, Suzy Q.” I started bawling. Impossible to explain how you know a God moment. You just know. When I think about what I would say to someone who asks me how I know there is a God, I can only think: “He lives, He lives, I know my Redeemer lives. You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.” Knowing that He is has not been my trouble as much as believing He loved me even when I was the perfect picture of a prodigal child. I went through a very dark time with that, thinking He had turned His back on me forever. It was attending the Get Out of That Pit telecast(2005? 2006?)that made me realize He had been holding His hand out to me all that time. That was, and still is, my biggest relief; knowing that my Father still loves me. I still struggle sometimes, but that picture of me down in a hole, all muddy, and Him steady up above with arm outstretched…that always gets me back on the right track.
A couple of years ago, I came home very frustrated. I flopped across my bed and cried out to the Lord, “Can You even see me or hear me…and if You do….do You even care?” It was about all I had in my to pray. About that time one of our Carolina side ways raining so hard you can see look for the ark kind of storms whipped up. My cats were all outside and being the cat lady that I am, I went outside to whistle for them (yes they come when I whistle and they can do tricks like dogs too). The wind was howling and the rain began to pound. I ran from the front of my carport to look in the back yard as no one was coming to my call. Right there is was. I swear there was a rainbow that ended in my very brown grass just next to the blueberry bushes. I went in and read the passage where God promises Noah that He will never forget His Word or His promises.
I would like to tell you that I ran into the back yard and danced in the rain and the end of the rainbow. I should have. I never knew that sometimes they really do end. But I had on a pair of new shoes and I didn’t want to ruin them. That sounds really stupid now. That is a pretty good picture of me. God reveals His glory and for one reason or another that seems pretty good to me, I stand off in the distance just watching. There is a rainbow around His throne and one day I will stand there at the rainbows end and I will dance and sing and praise Him–then I will be free from all the things that hold me back from Him. I wrote up a much longer version of this the day it happened, but I don’t want to forget and I want to try to remember to enjoy the amazing moments He sends my way even if it means ruining a new pair of shoes.
I’ve had a FOR REAL moment today! And it’s FUN! I just completed Day One of Week Four in the Patriarchs study, and you commented on how God makes us absolutely radiant with His word, regardless of our past oopses. I cried my eyes out when I read, “Imagine Christ looking at His Father right this moment and saying, ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?'” My waterworks turned into a sudden burst of giggles when I realized I have a facial scheduled today, and it just happens to be a “Lightening Facial.” One meant to make you radiant!
God is SO IN the small stuff of my life, as well as the big. He has restored me and blessed me far beyond beyondness, and it is a J-O-Y type of thing!
Whether it’s restored relationships, virginity, facials, or hair (that’s for you Beth), God is for real. Now excuse me, I have to go get ready for my spa day! 🙂
I was on the phone with my oldest son who lived in another state when he said his truck was hydroplaning and then the phone went dead. I found myself on my knees crying out to God. His truck rolled 7 times down a steep embankment but he was unhurt. It was a miracle from God. His Labrador retriever was in the back of his truck and he also escaped without injury. God is real. He is everything! I give Him all the praise and glory ! Cast your cares on Him He cares for you.
Two years ago, my sister and I were both pregnant due within two weeks of each other. We were so excited about all the fun things we would do and that our children would be able to grow up together. When my sister was one week from her due date, I got a call from our other sibling that she and her husband had gone in for an ultrasound and that their little boy had died, no heartbeat. But God was there, all of our family and her husband’s family came to be with them and we all got to hold him and be with them, there was a peace of God’s prescence I cannot adequately describe. Three days later I gave birth to my beautiful little girl. I was in the hospital during the funeral and I remember looking into her eyes and that my thought was that my Lord made her and that she was a prescious gift – the beauty and goodness of God over came me and there will never be any doubt in my heart that God is real. Two years later, to the day, God has done such a work of restoration and redemption. We will always remember and honor the memory of the little guy that we lost but we can also celebrate the little baby girl they now have. God is good and God is real! We may never understand the “why” of some situations but we can trust the heart of God.
I was practically born in the church. In fact, I’m sure that within the first two weeks of my life, I was listening to a sermon. As sure as the sun rose, you can bet we were in church three times a week. That being said, you’d think I had a list of “For Real” moments but I don’t. In fact, my first wasn’t until the age of 26. I was a new mom and my husband and I were about a year into attending church together for the first time, forming Godly friendship, exploring Bible studies, etc. Like a bolt of lightning, one day my world collasped when I discovered that my husband had relapsed back into an alcohol addiction. Crushed, confused and beside myself, I was emotionally spent and knew I had to make a very hard decision on what to do about it. We had a long, painful history of dealing with this addiction and I had thought that it was finally behind us. I had paid the price for his sin over and over again and I was ready to be done with it. Desperate for the Lord, I cried, “What do I do?” And, so gently and quietly, the Lord replied, “Love him the way that I love him.” It was the first time ever I had felt the Lord speak to me (or maybe just the first time I actually listened) and I was consumed with instant peace. I asked the Lord to help me love him in that way and 7 years later, He has not failed me once. It took the Lord loving him through my flesh, when the whole world around me told me to do the exact opposite, for my husband to experience God’s love for the first time. He wasn’t raised like I was and couldn’t fathom that type of love until he saw it manifested in his wife.
Forgive me, but I have to share my latest moment which was two days ago. After a particularly exhausting day of parenting (I have kids ages 8, 2 and 1), I was rocking Micah (my 1 year old daughter) and allowing my melancholy thoughts to take over. As I am convincing myself that I just can’t do it anymore, that I’m not being a good enough parent, Micah takes hold of my cross necklace and says, “Jesus” over and over. So sweetly and quietly, the Lord told me, “Yes, you are a good mother. She knows My name because of you and that’s enough.”
I’m a little late, but here goes, I knew He was real the moment I became a true believer, but the renewal of that was when I thought that I was going to lose my baby after doing in vitro. I didn’t want to go to church, all I wanted to do was lay on my couch and cry, but eventually His Word came and it was from Joshua. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Whom have I but Him, and I will desire none besides Him the most. His love for me became real, knowing that He is Who He says He is:)
I know I am late in responding, but there are so many situations that have shown me just how real He is. I recently took a 10ft. fall off of a ladder and broke my neck and back in several places. My husband and father wanted to drive me to the ER instead of an ambulance, they just knew I was going to be ok. Well, we found out there I had broken my neck and it was my the grace of God that I did not become paralyzed after they moved me. My healing has been well, a little slow, but I thank God everyday for the “new” life He has given me and my family. He shows us everyday how He is always here for us and just how real He is.
I grew up in the church and asked Jesus into my heart at a very young age. I always believed in Him, no doubt. But, it was Dec. ’09 that He became real to me. It was one night He asked me to surrender EVERYTHING to Him. I said “no” and we went back and forth a few times. He finally put me in my place…me child, Him my Father. I repented and he said “I love you” and He filled my entire being with His Love. The most amazing feeling I have ever felt. I gladly, at that time surrendered everything to Him. That night I experienced my Father like I never had and my life hasn’t been the same, to which I am forever thankful.
I used to say to the Lord…”Your Word says that you do above all we could ask or think. Well, I can ask and think of alot”. I had thought of alot of really awesome things that God could do but hadn’t. He left me in the pain of my circumstances. Why? I was a good Christian woman. I trusted God, I sought God..I did whatever He asked me to do, didn’t I? The pain was killing me. My heart was broken. I felt as if I died inside. Exactly. The pain led me to Him. The pain allowed me to see that I had spiritual pride. Pride hides. We have to seek it out to see where it is hiding. Pride hides but Humility seeks. I am a 53 year old woman. Married 34 years. God has answered prayer and done above all I could ask or think. He is bigger than I could have imagined.
My Navy Seal brother had a parachute accident, broke his back and his femur. Within 30 minutes of a desperate phone call from his wife I was on my way to the airport in Denver to go care for my brother in Hawaii. My 30 day visit was a complete renovation of my Spirit. My brother was in intensive care physically and as I cared for him, my Spirit was in intensive care. In the brokenness of my brothers body I saw the brokenness of Jesus and the sacrifice that was made for me. I prayed like I had never prayed before for the pain to subside for my pain-ridden brother and watched as God miraculously answered my prayer. God did a mighty work and I returned to Nebraska a new creation. I fell completely head over heals in love with my Almighty Savior all over again. Sunsets were more spendid, music more melodic, and it seemed I could see the Hand of God move every tiny detail. My brother had been told he wouldn’t fully recover for at least a year. BUT, My God had my brother call me 3 months later to tell me he had gone surfing. Isn’t HE Wonderful!
Sometimes I feel a lot older than my physical years (24), but I always chalk that up to the discipline and testing that God allows to come into my life to strengthen me. My “for real” moment is actually a series of moments in my life, where God chooses to reveal His glory to little, jar of clay, me 🙂 My most recent one was as I was reading books over a Systematic Theology paper that I am writing on the Doctrine of Atonement, and I realized that Jesus is the One, and only One, who was able to pay for my sins and wash me clean. It’s one of those moments where deep joy wells up out of your heart, and you just cry. Also, there are no words in the human speech that can explain how you feel, but thankfully, God knows what those feelings mean, and doesn’t need an exegesis of my heart 🙂
Six years ago I was in the pits. Nothing seemed to be going well in my life. Everything I was doing, from motherhood to friendships, was going downhill. So, one day, I sat down and decided that when I died, if there was nothing good that could be said of my life, at least they could say I memorized God’s Word. I found a journal and began to write one verse at a time. Everyday I practiced that verse, and once I had it down, I added another one. I’ve been doing this now for 6 years. It changed my life and transformed my thinking (Rom. 12:2). I no longer see life as I did before. I see God at work in almost everything. I hear wisdom in my head by way of those verses. I feel hope. I love what Beth wrote and wholeheartedly agree: “I seldom sit around and wonder if God exists and still speaks and still acts. …I still see as in a mirror darkly and I wonder why some things happen the way they do and how it will all work out and what some things in Scripture really mean. But ‘I know the One I have believed in.’” (2 Timothy 1:12)
Many years ago, I was graduating from High School and because of my position in the class, was required to give a speech. The Lord began to press on my heart that I should give my testimony, but of course I was terrified at the thought. Over and over as I opened up my Bible Study, the Lord kept affirming that this was what he wanted me to do. Finally, it was so clear I couldn’t avoid it. Terrified, I gave the speech, and the audience responded with a standing ovation. Why in the world an entire audience at a secular school would give a standing ovation to a testimony about the Lord I can’t explain. I stepped away, knowing it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with God. The Lord has never been so real to me than in that moment. Sometimes I’m tempted to think that it is just me making stuff up when I sense God speaking to me, but this is a reminder that God does speak in very tangible ways through His Word. I just need to take the step of faith to believe him for it.
A friend forwarded this to me and through her encouragement, am sharing very briefly a season when God revealed Himself REAL, not just in the head, but through the heart, as well. You said a “paragraph”? 🙂 My husband of 8 eight years had passed away suddenly, leaving me a widow with 2 sons and another on the way. Life changed on a dime, my identity and dreams wiped away, all to start from scratch and find new life within this earthly dwelling place. I grew up in a Christian home, going to church every time the doors were open. Much of my religious surroundings were legalistic based. I knew much of the “knowledge”, but now my heart began to know His heart, His true character. God became REAL, at the heart level. He showed me, personally, His character…to be loyal, trustworthy, patient, worthy and much more. I will be celebrating my husband’s 11th year anniversary into Heaven next Friday, April 22nd. God continues to show His heart to my own heart. He has comforted, brought healing, and has been faithful to fill the void in my sons’ lives and well as my own life. There have been numerous other areas that God continues to take me through in this lifelong process of graciously continuing to show me the same character traits over and over. One big area has been with finances. He’s blown me away! Yet, you leave me one paragraph! So much to say, so little space! 🙂 I will just end with saying, I don’t always feel His presence or see it in the way life seems to be going, but “I KNOW THE ONE I HAVE BELIEVED IN.”! And that has made all the difference, as it will continue to do, until I reach the other side and see Him face to face!
NET
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.
Annita, Haleyville, AL. “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37, NIV
We were moving to a new town and had been searching for a house to buy. I had prayed like nobody’s business that God would lead us to the right neighborhood and schools for our children. I was completely stressed out and felt like I was at my breaking point with making such a huge decision. After finally reaching a decision on which house to choose, I broke down in the car on the way home and cried my eyes out. I was so afraid that I hadn’t heard God clearly and chosen wrong. Sitting there in the car, I prayed that he would show me the right choice. All of the sudden, an awesome feeling of peace flooded over me. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The tears stopped and I knew we had made the right choice. God is so great. I could have never calmed myself down and been sure of my choice without his power. At that moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was real, had heard my prayers, and was leading our family down the path he had chosen.
God became real to me when I was dismissed from law school because my GPA fell 0.023 below the standard. I was at a loss. Being a pastor’s daughter my whole life, I thought I knew God well, but He definitely showed me something new. Since I was 7, I thought I knew what I was suppose to be- a lawyer (no ands, ifs, or buts about it). No one could convince me otherwise. I never knew failure like that before, until I saw the position I had identified myself with my entire life be taken away right before my very eyes. With my own professors telling me, I could never be. For a year, I prayed and pleaded to God for readmission. Something that never happens, happened. I was readmitted to my law school. This time with a year of love, pain, struggle, tears, and complete growth under my belt. God touched my heart. Till this day, there are moments when I cringe a bit when grades come out, but God is showing me to have no fear. And, I’ve learned to trust Him always. Thank you God for taking care of each and every step I take, even when I lose my balance too. 🙂