Evidence

“What on earth are we missing?”   Philip Yancey, Rumors of Another World

There is a subtle, yet important distinction between “evidence for God” and “evidence of God.”  If we’re collecting evidence for God, it’s as if we’re trying to prove His existence.  In observing the evidence of God, on the other hand, we are getting to know the God we already know is there.  I need no evidence for God.  That evidence is the witness of His Holy Spirit inside my being.  But I desperately long for evidence of Him, for the sense of His presence.  While I may intellectually agree that He is present, I also want and need to feel His presence in and surrounding my life.

F.W. Boreham in his 1997 essay, “The Quest,” said it well:  

“The footprints of God! It certainly proves that there is a God: but I want more than that. Robinson Crusoe found a footprint on his island: yet how little that footprint told him! Was it the footprint of a black man or a white man; of a friend or of a foe; of a man or of a woman? He could not tell. I want more than a footprint. The lover is not satisfied with the footprint of his lady: he wants her! I am not satisfied with the footprint of God: I want him! And science, failing to reveal him, failed to meet my soul’s deep need.”

We seek clues… not to build some airtight case for God.  We seek clues to discover “His eternal power and divine nature.”  God has set us loose… free to explore his visible creation for the purpose of knowing Him better.