Why I Believe In God

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Why I Believe In God

by
Winkie Pratney

I believe in God

because I am a child of the age that asked life, 'Why?'

so I walked a road of honest reason, searching,

to find each answer pointing like light in His direction.

I needed a pathway

I reached for reality

I hungered to live —

and He was closer than I dreamed.

I believe in God.

Each day this world declares him;

His wisdom stamps each snowflake 'Made in Heaven'!'

In the fresh chill of each new day

the air is alive with His closeness.

I feel His sky flare blue in praise above me,

watch a warm wind running ripples as if He blows across a field;

grip the good earth

and feel its rich black river cry,

'He lives!'

How can I help but believe?

I believe in God

when something deep within cries out

that I am not a child of chance,

a lucky freak that grew unguided

from a mud without a mind.

I believe in God

for I am more than chemical change.

I am a man —

I know

I feel

I live

and love

and He who made me in His image

is worthy of my worship.

I have known God's nearness

for I have feet of clay and there are times

when none could see if I should choose the wrong,

but when some sin would be so simple

and I feel it strangely fascinate

Someone just seems to be there

Someone puts me on my honor

Someone dares me do the difficult —

and no one is with me, my friend, no one but God.

There is one Book that speaks to me of God;

it struck within

a sacred flame that did not die.

This Bible tells of other men who felt as lost as I who came with childlike trust

and found He did not lie.

Is it so hard to believe

when we record the day He came

to cut our time in two?

Who else but Jesus showed us God made flesh,

the perfect Man who cannot be denied?

What other launched a life like His

to lift this word in love,

then cheated death to send us power from on high?

And now

when earth-men walk among the stars

I know that the Creator walked my world.

I believe in God

for I have watched the men who do not care to own him;

I've seen, with sickness, little lives wrapped up in foolish pride,

with faces marked for all the world to see their sin, who

just as l did

ran from holy light

or tried to hide their selfish lives beneath a shell of right.

Oh, stand them by a man who walks with God — and see!

Yes,

I knew men who said there was no God;

but I listened as they died

and I knew that they had lied.

Say I am too young to be so sure,

but I am old enough to feel my age's agony,

its brokenness and barrenness,

to watch it waste with fear and war.

Yet I have seen from every tongue and tribe

like springing grain amid the sterile stone,

men come alive to live in love,

to share and care beneath Christ's cross…

…and if you saw their smiles you'd know why I believe in God.

The day that I stopped running, this God found me.

Empty, trembling,

shaken with guilt and shame I came.

In a way I cannot draw with words

He loved me

forgave me

restored

and gave me His own Name.

Say what you will,

but He met me then,

put in my heart

a homesickness for heaven.

I have heard the still, small Voice

and called Him Friend

and I believe in God.

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