MELANIE REDD
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR, BLOGGER, SPEAKER, AND PODCASTER
Melanie Redd is a best-selling author of nine books, a blogger, a speaker, and a podcaster.
Her newest book – Just Rest: A Devotional Journal – is available on Amazon.
For the past thirty-five years, she has been married to her husband, Randy and serving alongside him in full-time ministry.
Additionally, she is a mom to two awesome young adults (Riley and Emily) and one Mini Australian Shepherd.
God’s grace never ceases to amaze her!
You can find out more about Melanie and her ministry at www.melanieredd.com.
You can also connect with Melanie on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Five Reasons I Believe God Is Real
MELANIE REDD
Last week, I posted to a social media site that is a little offshoot of Instagram called Threads.My post was short and simple; I shared these words: “The same God who created the universe is personally involved in your life.” Most of the comments I received back were so positive. However, one woman replied in this way:
“Miss Melanie, would you want to tell us about this fake god? Because I’ve researched the most intelligent people, and anyone with half a brain knows that we ain’t found it yet.”
After praying and taking a deep breath, I answered her with as much grace as I could in a few short words. My response was as follows:
“For over 50 years I have been in a personal relationship with a God who is real in my life. Through loss, tears, happy times, and hard moments, He has walked with me and given me unexplainable joy, hope, and peace. There are several reasons I believe God to be real.
Here are just five of those reasons:
First, I believe God is real because I can see His handiwork everywhere.
As I look at the rivers, oceans, mountains, lakes, sunsets, and amazing people all around me, I see masterpieces that can point me to an awesome Artist. Our God creates beautiful things, beautiful scenery, and beautiful people. (1)
Second, God’s Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am His.
In other words, I have a sense that I belong to Something bigger and greater than myself. From the moment that I invited Him into my life at age eleven, I have had a sense of His nearness. He is with me. He is for me. I do not walk through this life alone.
Third, my life is better and sweeter because of my relationship with Him.
Because of my relationship with God, I have a peace that I can’t explain. There is a hope in the depths of my heart even when life is wild and fierce storms are blowing. In addition, I have a deep and abiding joy that carries me through even the most difficult days and nights.
Fourth, I believe in God because I believe in the Bible.
The Bible tells us there is a God. He is real, and He exists! (2
Finally, I believe in God because of all that I have watched Him do in my life and in the lives of others around me.
I have seen unbelievable and unexplainable: Transformations. Renovated lives. Restored marriages. Wayward children who came home. Healing over illness and cancer. Hope restored. Lives mended. So many incredible miracles.
These things are not just coincidences. They are divine acts by a divine hand that have been done in miraculous ways. God is real! I have absolutely no doubt.
In the paraphrased words of Blaise Pascal, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator.” (3)
Footnotes:
1) In Romans 1:20, we read, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So, they have no excuse for not knowing God.”
2) In 1 Corinthians 8:6 we read, “Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist,…”
3) While not an exact quote, this popular, modern paraphrased statement captures the theological theme of some of the writings of Blaise Pascal, as discussed in his collection of theological thoughts, Pensées (specifically Section VII, The Morals and the Doctrine). Pascal's actual words regarding the human longing were:
"What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things he does not see the help he does not find in those he does. But this void is infinite, and immutable; that is to say, it is filled only by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself."