God of the Odd

Two True Stories, One Similarity

       It was around 2002 and I needed to make my daughter a new highland vest for her dance competition.  As usual, we couldn’t afford to buy a new one, so I’d have to strip the ribbon off the old one and find the extra material left over from the last one I made.  After a few days of looking everywhere I could think of for that material, I tried to buy some new one, but there was none in the colour I needed in our city.  That was it.  I HAD to find the cloth in my house.  I prayed to the Lord, and I heard Him say in that inner voice, “It’s in the tree”.  Okay, just what was that supposed to mean?

       I looked out at the trees in our yard and shook my head.  There was no way it was out there in our yard.  We didn’t even have any plants in the house that could be considered tree-like, so I began to think, ‘maybe it was my imagination’.  I didn’t know what I was going to do.  “Please Lord, help!”  I heard the same words as earlier.  Later that night it dawned on me, ‘I do have one tree in the house- my artificial Christmas tree.  But there’s no way I would have ever put cloth in the attic.’  Still, I decided I was going to go look, and then say, ‘told you it wouldn’t be there’, but as I pushed the picky branches around, I found a plastic grocery bag tangled in them, and managed to get it free.  Inside the bag was the black velour like material I was looking for and I was able to make the vest.

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       Hubby has a prosthetic eye and has had one since he was a teenager.  One day he told me about something that happened before we ever met.  After getting home one time he had taken out his plastic eye because it was bugging him and his socket needed a rest.  He left the eye in a tissue somewhere and couldn’t find it.  He searched the whole house over, even the garbages, but was having no success.  If there is anyone who has a talent for finding things it is him, and he doesn’t give up until he finds the item.

 

        The main floor of the house had four basic rooms, and he had checked them all several times with no luck.  Eventually he also asked the Lord for help.  I can’t remember how long it was after that, but he heard a light ka-thunk and roll.  There, in the middle of the living room floor was his eye, almost like it had fallen out of nowhere to land and roll on the hardwood floor.  Odd (strange, abnormal, unusual, out of the ordinary) isn’t it?

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       Both these stories seem unbelievable.  I guess to some people, so does the ‘story*’ of Jesus who was God, but came to the earth in mortal, human flesh (Php. 2:6,7), taught and did incredible miracles of healing, resurrection of the dead, altering nature, multiplying elements, dying on the cross for our sins and then raising from the dead Himself.  Just because it might sound unbelievable, doesn’t mean it is untrue.  There are four main written testimonies.  Luke, a physician who investigated what he wrote, says this:

Since many people have attempted to write an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were passed down to us by those who had been eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning, I, too, have carefully investigated everything from the beginning and have decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.  Lk. 1:1-4

       Thousands of people saw Jesus in the flesh, many saw Him suffer and die, and over 500 saw Him after His resurrection (1Cor. 15:6).  Most of the apostles and many newly converted to Christianity died horrible, torturous deaths still proclaiming Jesus risen from the dead.  If they were even slightly uncertain, would they have died for that truth?  Would you? 

 

       God is the God of the odd.  He uses the foolish (stupid, absurd thereby odd) things of life to confound the wise (or those who think they are!) (1Cor. 1:27).  So no matter how unbelievable the Bible may seem, based on the facts I have checked out, I am confident it is a true recollection of all that happened historically and the truth of God given to man for the benefit of all mankind.

The truth will remain the truth whether or not anyone believes it.

For your eternal salvation, I hope you believe the truth of the Bible.

*Unbelievers consider it a story/ fable and even some ‘believers’ claim it is only allegorical or a story used for teaching good morals.