Evidence

I love Jesus. I’ve known him a long time. I really want people to talk about him. I really want people to not be ashamed about him. But as much as I want that in my deepest parts, even I am a little scared of what our church is doing on Sunday mornings. Scared in a this is how church is supposed to be and I stand in fearful awe of it kind of a way.

We’ve been starting each service with asking people to stand from their seats to share evidences of God’s grace, in front of the entire congregation. God’s graces are moments we have seen God to be real and we see him working in our lives. The point is to give really specific praises to the Lord, showing, demonstrating, professing that we are gathering to worship a real God who is really present and at work in our lives.

We did it a little differently a few Sundays ago. Our worship leader, Pastor Tim, was leading us into a song and in between choruses he said he was going to back off and let us fill in by shouting out praises to God. The song’s words were declaring that God was great. So he said, God is great so let’s declare his greatness, let’s declare praises to what he has done.

It struck me really heavily that we are so willing to sing songs on Sundays, we are so willing to let the words flow off our tongue about what a great God he is, and that we will remember him and that we believe, and on and on. But how willing am I to sit and meditate on how good He has been…specifically to me? Am I meditating on that? Am I sitting on that question of Pastor Tim’s, day to day? How has the Lord been good…to me? How have I seen evidence of his grace? How can all 1000 of us be so willing to sing in chorus that He is good to us and not be just as willing to sing out individually that He is good to me?

Is it all about fear of man? Or is it also about just not even knowing and recording in my heart and meditating on his goodness? Maybe one. Maybe both. Might change week to week.

A little while back a friend of mine was talking to me about how she struggles on and off with believing that everything she believes with God is really real. She doubts. The Lord instantly brought to mind a gift to give her. I had found the most perfect little pocket sized journal for my mother in law a few weeks earlier, but it had come in a four pack. I just went ahead and bought it, knowing the Lord would have me to give away the other ones for some purpose. I put them aside at home and waited. So when I was talking to my friend and she was confessing her struggles with doubt, I thought of that little book and wanted to give it to her. I felt impressed on my heart to encourage her to jot down the date and just a sentence or two every time she saw/felt/witnessed evidence that God was real in her life. So many times I think the Lord increases our faith by showing up in x and speaking to us in the midst of x and filling our hearts in x situation but later, just like the Israelites in the Old Testament, we forget him. But what if we didn’t forget? What if we could at least look back at something…to recall him? To increase our faith?

I have another friend who’s in a rough spot with just walking through sadness. She’s a sweet sister in Christ, is compelled towards Christ, and here she is in just a difficult spot of being squeezed straight through the middle of a heart breaking trial. And in our trials we start to look around and go, Really? You’re real? In this? We’ve all been there to one degree or another. And all I could do in my heart was just scroll back over her life and so many evidences of his love for her and the reality of the Lord in her life and heart just poured over me, though specifically they may have been more difficult to list. But my hope was that in the midst of her struggle, her faith would increase…by looking back. By believing in the evidence of what has already happened, even if God felt silent, and even…cruel, now.

Evidence. Evidence might be a true moment of worship. You’re singing and you’re overcome with faith. It might be an actual answer to prayer. You get a check in the mail that covers the exact amount of your rent. It might be through a word from a sister or brother in Christ, in the moment of your weakness and need. It might be coming across a Scripture verse that speaks to you as if it were your counselor. It might be the Holy Spirit whispering truth to you in a moment of confusion to bring you peace. It might be a sense of strength when you felt you could not do it. Or a recollection of a bible verse when you needed encouragement for yourself or a friend. Or a meal bought by a friend when you were out of cash or out of energy. Or the Lord awakening you at 6am when you didn’t think you’d be able to open your eyes until 10.

And I think it’s important to watch for evidence in our spouses and friends and family members in Christ too. What a joy to watch the Lord work in the lives of believers around us and then, in their moments of weakness and wandering and even just faithlessness and hopelessness we can point to very specific evidences of the Lord for them that we ourselves have witnessed. Isn’t that powerful? I can allow the Holy Spirit to use me, my memory, my witness, to increase another’s faith in the God of their heart. That’s pretty incredible.

There’s evidence. Daily. All around. Do we see him? Sense him? See his truth and answers and presence clearly?

I started an Evidences of Grace journal. Yes, it’s one of the four little mini books I bought. After I gave one to my mother in law and then my friend, the third one just kept stalking me until I realized it was for me :). I have a terribly, embarrassingly horrific memory. It’s actually something I am hoping the Lord can heal in me, truly. But regardless of a healing in this life, I know that I can record the evidences of God in written form so that I can remember him. Remember his goodness. And then! Cast my faith upon that goodness, that evident sweet goodness, on days that I’m really honestly struggling with belief in the God who I know, I know, I know has pursued me and loved me and caught me up in His Spirit.

He is real. He is good. And I have evidence. Do you?