To Banjo Paterson.

A second event I'll share, happened when I was coming home from a wedding. It was a friend of my brother's who had gotten married, so our family was invited as a whole to come attend the wedding, and celebrate afterwards. The location though was a ways from home, and when I left it was late and I was tired. Driving home I got worried about driving safely, because I wasn't aware how tired I was until I started driving. At that point though, I was already on the road, nowhere to pull off yet, and no phone. So I thought a very quick prayer that was basically a call for help. Immediately after that quick "help me God" thought I felt awake. Very awake. I made it home and went to bed, but I couldn't go to sleep for another half hour or so after I came home. The answer to this prayer was a physical change. An observable change that I know isn't some mind trick, or the power of the mind kind of thing. This is the second time in my life that I'm aware of, where God answered a prayer with a physical change in me. Something I could feel, not with emotions, but with my senses. The first time was enough for me to be aware that God can do this, and that was a realization on it's own. However this event I share for your benefit, so that you can know what God can do if He wants to. After this happened I was grateful and surprised how God answered the prayer, but not surprised that He could answer it this way.

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Once again I ask you to not try and debate or offer an explanation to explain this away. This kind of answer though rarer then other prayer responses, still happened, and the explanations I've heard debated here on OLO, have been desperate attempts for a reason, and quite frankly were insulting. I'd rather not go into that again. I'd rather you believed or disbelieved my accounts without a debate.

However I will say this. I know my limitations, and my faults. I know that I have nothing special about me, nor something to show a worthiness of God's attention. Therefore my thought as I've said before is that if I can find God then so can anyone else. It would be easier to try to find God on your own then to debate how someone else has found God. That way you can see on your own instead of offer shallow explanations for events you weren't there for. If you find Him, great. If not, then at least you tried. My advise for this though is to treat God with at least the same respect as you would a stranger you see on the street. The reasoning is that if you wouldn't go up to a stranger and say to them "prove to me your a good person," or "prove to me you exist," nor put them on the spot as some kind of experiment; then don't treat God in the same manner. Give Him at least the same respect you'd give a guy you greet on the road of life, even if you've never met them before. But with God go ahead and talk to Him. Share your thoughts, your worries. Your hopes, or anything else. The bible encourages people to pray at all times, and pray for all things. So you can bring anything to God in prayer.

To Banjo Paterson.

I've given you two examples of prayers having an answer. And for me being there for these and a few others, these are enough to show that God is real. He is not a theory, nor a hypothesis. However, I also let you know that people can find God (or clues of Him), through other means besides prayer. I've already given some thoughts on that matter in this discussion with observations of the world around us. Studying the life that is here, it's complexity, and how well everything has a place, as well as life being sustained instead of falling apart and becoming extinct.

That said, I'll give you one more observation. Not a prayer, nor a view of the world. Just an observation on my life. I'm not a saint or a scholar. Not remarkably gifted, nor someone who gone through great hardships that deserves God's attention and grace. Nothing I've done can be said that I've earned a special place with God. Nonetheless I can tell you based on when I've gotten into some of the things I'm not proud of (and things I won't share here), they were also things I was ashamed of and tried to distance myself from God as well.

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The idea was to not pray, not ask for forgiveness, not ask for help. And from being ashamed I'd not approach God until I could get myself out of that habit, and cleaned myself up. The result was a strange observation. When I was trying to be close to God, I was a better person then when I tried on my own efforts to be a good person. One is that I never got away from the thing I was trying to quit. I'd be good for a little while but then fall right back into it. (It's not drugs but it is an addictive habit). The second thing I noticed is that while I struggled to make myself a better person, the struggle was harder on other fronts then just the issue I was dealing with. I got agitated easier, lost patience, and had a shorter fuse.

By no means can I say I am a perfect person when I try to have God in my life more. But I am a better person when I do. It is not as hard to be forgiving, or patient, or understanding, when I ask for God in my life, and ask for His forgiveness and help for my issues. But when I've tried to do so without God, it's like a computer game setting where you have normal or easy difficult setting, then going to hard mode. Not having God puts life in the difficult setting.

I'm telling you this because this is an observation about God, and His effect on my life without it being about praying. There are other observable things to point to God, even if you don't have an answer to a prayer.

As for the thing I was dealing with. I never got over it on my own. But every time I brought it to God when it was a temptation or an ongoing issue. He's helped me with it. And the temptation wasn't there as often nor as strong, when I tried to stay close to God.

//The first is that the people are crazy, or had a moment of craziness. The mind was playing tricks on them, or they were under the influence of some kind of delusion for whatever reason.//

//The second theory is a conspiracy of lies. People made it up.//

Remarkably similar to C.S. Lewis' false trilemma, and just as dodgy an argument I'm afraid. You are failing to take into account other possible explanations outside of your arbitrary limitations of 'Liar, Lunatic or Lord'. I believe you reject those other possible explanations because you have assumed their (in)validity, which begs the question.

//The responses were either mock and ridicule "oh really, yeah I prayed to Thor."//

I fail to see what is ridiculous about praying to Thor. He's a God, surely it is reasonable to pray to Him? If someone prays to a different God to you, do you think they do that to mock and ridicule you?

It was an argument from analogy, NNS, attempting to demonstrate that praying for something which can occur by random chance without requiring divine intercession, and then if it does occur, concluding that it was necessarily the work of a higher power, is not a valid argument. The identity of the God in question was irrelevant, I just happen to like Thor; would you still consider it mockery if I had prayed to the Hindu God Indra? Or the Rainbow Serpent?