Hi friends! On today’s episode of Draw Near to Me, we will begin Ed’s faith journey. For those who prefer to read, today’s content is also posted below. The first time I met Ed in person was the day I interviewed him. My husband, Jeff, knew him through a men’s group that they both attend called SWAT, which stands for Spiritual Warriors Advancing Truth. Jeff had suggested I reach out to Ed to see if he would share some of his story, and Ed was gracious enough to do so. Something that immediately stood out to me about Ed was how humble he was and how much he loves the Lord. His desire to honor God and share, as led by Jesus, was truly wonderful. Thank you, Ed, for being willing to share part of your story. Since this is a man’s testimony, Jeff will be the voice for Ed’s story. If you enjoy this post, please share it with others using the share button below and consider doing a free or paid subscription. With that, let’s dive into Ed’s story. Enjoy!
I thank God daily for not being the kind of God that gives up on people. If He was that kind of God, I wouldn’t be here. When I was little, I grew up with my parents and 3 siblings. I had two sisters and a brother. My oldest sister was 12 years older than me. She was always a very generous person. I admired that and started to take after her regarding generosity.
Nevertheless, like many people, I was pretty wild at a young age. I did not follow Christ. Interestingly, even though I did not know if God existed, or if I believed in Him, I still talked to Him. Decades of my life went by before there was a change in my relationship with God.
When I was in my sixties, I lived in California. I remember I was walking through a field one day. It was a big open lot of land, but there was a path that went right down the center. Along the way, there was a bush that was located midway down the field, right next to the path.
As I walked down the field, I saw a rabbit run into the bush. I said, “God, if you exist, have that rabbit run up my leg.” Immediately I felt regret and said, “I’m sorry God. If you exist, I should not be telling you what to do. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” As I walked closer to the midway point where the bush was, I paused next to it and tapped it. Immediately, the rabbit ran out of the bush. As it fled, it didn’t turn left or run away from me. Instead, the rabbit turned right toward me and ran straight up my leg!
I was amazed. It was a moment where all I could do was stop and think, “Wow!” You would have thought that incident was enough to convince me that God existed, but it wasn’t. I kept it aside in my mind but did not surrender to Christ in that moment.
As I mentioned, I grew up being fairly generous due to my sister’s influence in my life. I never donated money expecting to get something back. To me, that defeated the purpose of being generous. Regardless, it seemed that every time I donated money to something, the money was somehow returned to me. For example, if I donated to a cause, that money came back to me through a tax return that I had forgotten I filed or a lottery ticket etc. The way in which I donated the money and it returned were not necessarily tied to the same event, but it seemed to happen repeatedly over the years.
After the incident with the rabbit running up my leg, I had another moment where I challenged God’s existence. It was not to be disrespectful of Him, but I was naïve at the time. Honestly, I was still searching and questioning. I had donated some money and said, “Okay God, if you really exist, I gotcha this time. There’s no way you can bring this money back.”
I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I thought I had Him. I had not bought a lottery ticket, it was not tax season, and in general I did not see any way that God could return that money. How could He fulfill this request to show me He existed if I had not provided Him with the opportunity? Well, that turned out to be a stupid thought.
When I look back, I don’t think God was angry with me for saying this. It is a guess, but I believe that He just kind of smiled, and said, “Okay Ed. We’ll see.” Very soon after I foolishly thought, “Gotcha God!” my phone rang. I think it was an hour later, although it could have been the next day, but it was within 24 hours of my statement to God.
I picked up the phone and found out the call was from the CEO of a company I used to work for. That company had been sold to another company at the time but it was still running. Anyway, the CEO called me and said, “Hey Ed! Would you be interested in doing some consulting?” It turned out he had gotten my name from some friends that still worked at the company, and he decided to reach out. I agreed to take the job. He then casually said, “Oh, by the way, we pay weekly.”
I immediately began consulting for the company. That same week, I had already done half a day of work for a couple of days. I gave the company the invoice for the work I had done. In the moment, I did not think much of the timing, but then the money came in. Since I was paid on a weekly basis, the money from my job was deposited before my credit card bill came in. That’s when it hit me. I suddenly realized that my unexpected income had arrived before I had to pay for the donation I made on my card. I thought, “God, you did it!” I did not think there was a way for the donation money to come back, but He had made a way.
After experiencing those two things, the rabbit and the unexpected job, I realized that I’d better start looking into things. It was time to see if God really existed. Again, you would have thought that I would have already believed after that, but I didn’t.
I think part of the reason I didn’t immediately believe was because I was an engineer by profession. As we get older, we can get more set in our ways. By the time I had those two encounters with God, I had already gone through engineering school and worked for decades as an engineer. Originally, I went to be a civil engineer, then transferred to mechanical, and eventually ended up being aeronautical.
I was trained and immersed in a very analytical field. There was no guessing in engineering. We wouldn’t want to build a bridge and say, “I think this will be okay. This footing can maybe go here. I think this bridge is strong enough.” No. We designed things and reviewed them. Everything was looked over by a group of professionals. We had to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was correct. There were no guesses, it had to be shown in ways that could be proven. With that background, it was a very big deal for me to just say that I believed in God.
I started the process of trying to prove to myself that God existed. However, I quickly realized I needed to take a different approach. Instead of trying to prove that He existed, I decided that I was going to prove that He did not. I reasoned that if God really existed, then He would have done x, y, and z. If I found occurrences where He did not do it, then He likely did not exist. That became my strategy to reach my conclusion about God.
I began reading my Bible to disprove God’s existence. Then, I ran into a problem. The Bible addressed each question and argument that came to my mind about God. At times, if I simply reexamined the passage I just read, the answer was already there. Other times, I had not read anything that was relevant to my question, but the next day the response would appear. Every objection that I had was answered. God revealed to me that He truly existed in a way that I needed to be shown. He knew what was necessary to convince me.
I thank God that He was patient. He didn’t give up on me. After my rabbit experience, the subsequent events happened within a year. It seemed like a relatively short period of time. I was at a point in my life where some may think it was too late to know God, but my experience is a reminder that it never is.
That is how at the tender young age of 64 years old, I became a Christian.
To be continued.
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Introductory music credits: Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/disco-street License code: PCRXRU3YV6SD6VLA
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