This past Friday I was looking at a Christian Facebook page and noticed a comment by an atheist who said he wanted evidence of God’s existence. I tried to explain to this guy how God is always revealing Himself to us, even in the most subtle ways. He asked how I came to that conclusion and I told him that knowing God involves a relationship and me trying to explain it would be like trying to explain how a mango tastes to someone who never had a mango.
That Friday night I went to bed, then I woke up at around 2 in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep until about two hours later. As I was meditating on scripture, I imagined someone in church glowing and holding a bar of gold, then the phrase “look heavenward” came to mind. Then the words of Christ in Revelation 3:18 flashed to memory: “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire”. Then I imagined the guy glowing in the church was a knight wearing God's armor. Then two songs came to mind: "He Has Made Me Glad" and “All hail the power of Jesus’ name”. Then I got up to get some water, went back to bed, and eventually fell asleep.
As I was getting ready to go to church, I heard, on the radio, the same two songs that had come to my mind while I was having trouble sleeping and they were back-to-back, one right after the other. I thought to myself “wow, you can’t make this up”. Little did I know, this was only the beginning.
At church, the welcome included a prayer and I noticed the phrase "look heavenward" was used. Then, I kid you not, the children’s story was about wearing the armor of God. An illustration was used, showing how an unpeeled orange can float above water, but a peeled orange will sink. The peel was compared to armor and the phrase “a knight in shining armor” was even mentioned. While the orange was peeled, a story was told of someone who was losing their hold on God and it sounded like it was talking about me.
During the song service, the first song was “Tell me the story of Jesus”, the same song I sang with my dad for morning worship at home before coming to church. That's not all! The closing prayer after the sermon made reference to the "gold" of faith in Revelation 3:18. During potluck, Isaiah 41:10 flashed to my memory and it reminded me that God would me with me, even during trials. It also reminds me of this verse: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ" 1 Peter 1:6-7