Do you have Divinely inspired wisdom and direction for everyone around you? Are you the center of all reason, keeping tabs as minder for the masses that they are within parameters? Did you absolve yourself of all sin, mistake and propensity to wrong thinking, distancing yourself from those who refuse or are incapable of putting together a sentence to your liking?

Be whatever God is making you to become. If it is not to my liking then I will either remain silent as I pray for the appropriate encouragement or criticize showing my own penchant for foolishness. This is no reward, trudging through my own weakness and propensity to learn slowly. I would love to accommodate your need for growth but as commanded I am working out my own.

The world is in the midst of a keel haul. Those who seek normalcy feel that they are being dragged precipitously close to the jagged bottom, struggling to keep their masks on tightly grasping for each opportunity to breathe. What torrents does the Lord know we may withstand? How difficult will this trip down the broad boulevard become before we obey good council?

I neither aspire to be something that I am not nor do I quest to see your arrival at my carefully laid plan for your existence. That is your ordeal. Yes, there is a narrow pathway where we as family counsel and remain together working cooperatively to achieve objectives while watching out for each other, but that is all within the confines of bringing His name Glory and Honor.

What then is the fevered pitch to make sure everyone else is deemed incorrect while I am elevated to most favored Human Status? What do I care if anyone may surpass me in; talent, treasure, teaching, nobility or character? This is not a competition among men, especially those reborn, as God has the same love for each of us, none were worthy, remember that phrase?

I am not troubled by the enemy’s constant proclamation that we cannot win, we are doomed or somehow do not possess the intellect to even join the contest. This is the victory we were shown and promised before its arrival. Why? Why give us that glimpse, for this is true championship, knowing promised victory in faith and hope before it eclipses the horizon of tomorrow’s projected dawn.

Skeptics and Bareans are similar but not the same. Although they share a willingness to disbelieve until proven they pursue different means and alternate ends to arrive at the removal of discomfort. Show me state is not the same as Show Me Holy Spirit though this world will demand you treat them as such. You see a skeptic or evidence demanding person will never come to the knowledge of the truth even when shown what they originally stated appropriate evidence. While Bareans will search God’s Word until finding the healing scripture or use it in prayer to arrive at God’s objective understanding.

The man who demands evidence is saying I am limited in my ability to achieve belief in miracles, dimensions or anything beyond my own definition of the Universe. I am saddened for them as this commits them to war with God as He demands they acknowledge Him having been given Divine Evidence in Creation.

Often skeptics are troubled in their lives, work and relationships because they are waiting until and undefined date to determine if the people in their lives are in fact: loyal, loving or appropriately mated. Bareans are determined to find the answer and know that although they are doubtful of uncertified hypothesis or new information they will in fact receive confirmation relevance at some Godly moment.

An Atheist told me he would not accept the Gospel in faith without appropriate evidence, yet when I asked him if anything short of God standing in front of him would fit the bill, he said that he wasn’t sure that would be sufficient. I thanked him for his skepticism and showed him compassion for the obvious pain and let down that this life or the church had caused that left him in this predicament. He accepted that as truth.

I then told him if I were in his position I too would want the rock hard evidence if I were to believe something as important as belief in God, hope or eternal promises. However, I asked, if you are defining the necessary evidence for God’s existence, isn’t that the same thing as saying, You pay me first then I will do the work? I said let us look at the Biblical evidence that scientists and historians already acknowledge.

Then as quickly but clearly as I could I went through known history, dates, people, documentation and how it matched with occurrences, lands, kingdoms, kings and circumstance. With this he could not disagree. Then I went to evolution which most skeptics believe is that impermeable Shield against Faith. And showed him that Darwin said his Hypothesis was all wrong if even part of it were proven wrong, which numerous segments have been proven incorrect.

He then said well he believed because dogs ears and birds beaks changed over time. I asked to humor me for a moment and imagine a one celled creature without an eyeball, suddenly being able to hunt for food with an eyeball of sense of smell or touch. How is evolution possible at that point? He did not feel comfortable. So I proceeded.

I went back to NOAH, laying out the picture of Creation in the Teen’s of Genesis, having first defined for him the battle started by God in 3:15. I told him about Seth and this blew his mind not being a Barean no one had explained Adam and Eve’s third Son. This startled him and as I described the Giants and connected him with Text and experts on this period he turned to extra biblical texts that immediately change the subject.

His position made sense when you consider the powers of deception, misdirection and bad education offered by God’s enemies. At this moment he surprised me and conceded without provocation that God is the Creator and that we needed to work from that point forward. Astonished I am glad the Holy Spirit told me where to go next because it would have been a perfect point to stumble.

I thanked him for his honesty and left it alone at this point. For a man on a extreme diet of skepticism will never accept the Holy Spirit’s Sight necessary to see heavenly things clearly. I knew that the Holy Spirit needed me to leave him alone with his, pestering, unsolvable, perpetual thoughts and arguments. I am assured that the next conversation he will have done his homework. The Victory is assured not in my eloquence, debate or historicity, but because God loves this man so much that He will change his heart at the exact and necessary moment. I just did my funny little victory dance. In Jesus’ Name.