Kendall the Fire

“If there’s a God, I’ve never seen him,” the arrogant student triumphantly declared.

We live in a world which constantly wants to visualize that which purports to be real. People clamor for a God that they can disassemble like the transmission of a car or can cuddle like a puppy. They want to make demands on God like a convicted criminal does upon society. It seems that God doesn’t exist unless He crawls into a test tube for scientific evaluation… that unless He can be calibrated and measured, our world by and large rejects Him.

The afore-mentioned student, though young and perhaps naive, voiced the doubts of a large percentage of our society–I watched someone do it on TV just last night, in fact. Because God doesn’t take a seat in the cafeteria, doesn’t sit courtside at an NBA game, or appear on the news protesting the latest cause de célèbre He must not exist.

On the street I generally travel to campus, sits a brick home with black trim… I pass it a dozen times a week. I have noticed the manicured yard—a sprinkler sometimes spinning and slinging water here and there. Frequently, a silver Nissan sits in the driveway, a sticker on the back window declaring “baby on board.” At times, a pickup truck sits beside it. On certain days, a green garbage dumpster is rolled out by the curb. Sometimes, in the evening, light emanates from windows. Yet, to this day, I have never seen a human on the property.

Now, if I were to follow the argument of the student who blatantly denied God’s existence because he had not seen Him, I could reason that there isn’t anyone living in the house. However, because I haven’t seen anyone doesn’t prove their non-existence.  Logic will amply inform any reasonable person that the afore-mentioned changes and the various signs of care give sufficient proof of someone’s presence.

Likewise, it would be foolish to argue that a mother’s devoted love does not exist because it isn’t seen. Would we refuse to shelter from a threatened tornado because we couldn’t see the wind? Would we jump from a high building because we couldn’t see gravity? Should we shun sunscreen because we can’t see dangerous ultra-violet rays? The answers to these questions are obvious.

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of things I’ve never seen… but I’m smart enough to admit that they exist. So I assuredly declare, “God does exist!” I saw His handiwork this morning!