4/30/2015
Let’s imagine something for a moment. Are you imagining yet? Ok. Well stop imagining that something you’re imagining right now and imagine this.
Alright, so imagine you go on a camping trip with a couple of close friends. You guys unpack, set up your little tents, then decide you should start the campfire to get those s’mores going (YUM), but uh oh…no wood! :O
Ok, so without wood, you can’t start the fire and if you can’t start the campfire, there are no s’mores! ;O Nooooo!
Calm down, don’t panic. Remember, we are only imagining. Totally hypothetical.
After much deliberation, you and your friends decide to split up and collect some wood worthy of burning.
As you begin your small quest searching for dry pieces of wood, you notice most of them are moist (probably because it rained only a few hours before); so you decide to walk a bit further out to see if you have better luck finding any dry pieces.
While you are out on your wood hunt, suddenly, you hear something moving around in the brush close by you.
You’re thinking, “Oh no, is it a bear? I hope it’s not a bear! I’m too young and beautiful to be eaten by a bear!” (Maybe not the last part)
Your eyes begin to frantically look around for the culprit. You hear the steps of something large, possibly a large animal, moving closer and closer to you, and you stand there… frozen in fear… waiting for whatever it is…to appear.
You begin to smell an unpleasant, putrid, odor. Its curiosity of you causes it to begin revealing itself from among the trees and there he is…about 10 feet in front of you, is, noneother than, Big Foot.
Big Foot keeps a safe distance, but is just close enough to examine you. Throughout this whole encounter, you are frozen…in shock…possibly with your mouth hanging wide open. It takes you a few moments before you are able to react to the situation.
Here is proof of one of the world’s greatest mythical mysteries standing right in front of you. You can see it, you can smell it, you can even touch it if you wanted to (although it would probably not be wise to try and touch Big Foot); but you, my friend, are having a Big Foot experience.
Ok, so there’s Big Foot…Quick! Get some proof! Use the camera on your phone to take a picture! But what is this?? The battery is dead!! Oh no!! Now what?? Try calling out to your friends to come see before he completely disappears.
As you call out to your friends, Big Foot freaks out and runs away into the darkness because he is not ready to go viral on Facebook right as your friends are barely arriving.
So now your friends want to know why you called out to them like a lunatic, but how do you tell them you just saw Big Foot without sounding crazy? Nonetheless, it’s the truth, so it should be fine!
Ok, so now you just told them you saw Big Foot and he is real, but they don’t quite believe you. You even describe to them every single detail that you can remember, but they think you’re crazy…cause everyone knows that Big Foot is a myth. There is no way that he can be real. There is no “scientific evidence” that proves his existence.
But you were there. You saw him. You could smell him. You could almost touch him. You experienced it. There is not a single doubt in your mind that he exists. Now, it doesn’t matter what science says, or what anybody says. You KNOW that Big Foot is real.
For the rest of your life, you will know that Big Foot is real and nothing will ever change that.
So what does Big Foot have to do with your faith, Jo?
Patience, my friend, we are getting there.
Well, when people ask me why I believe in God, I like to tell them this analogy.
I grew up in church, or “under the church benches” as some people say, but I never really decided for myself until I was about 13 years old. Like any normal person, I had my doubts. I had my questions. I had heard things, but all it took was one experience for me to know that He is real. (One experience that I will gladly write about in another blog post)
I may not have all the scientific evidence that most people need to believe in something, and I may not write in the most intellectual way either, but I do know this, He is real.
I wish I could say that reading the Bible was enough for me, but at 12/13 years old…I needed more.
That one experience was all it took, because now, it doesn’t matter what scientific evidence people try to show me (it doesn’t matter what anyone tells me), I will know for the rest of my life, without a doubt in my mind, that God is real.
My prayer is that God reveals Himself to the unbelievers. I pray that He uses me as a vessel to reflect Him to those who don’t believe.
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him…” -Hebrews 11:6
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened…” Matthew 7:7
I know I’m weird. Ok. Bye.
Quite Simply Jo 