Manoah, the father of Samson, was terrified when he realized that the “holy man” who had spoken to him was, in fact an angel of God: ”we are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God,!” But his wife answered, “If the Lord meant to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering . . . from our hands, nor told us this.” (Judges 13:22-23) They had been told by the angel that the wife would give birth to a son, and that the boy would be dedicated to God. Both husband and wife were terrified at the appearance of the angel ascending in the smoke of the altar fire, but the wife knew that God is a God of His word, and Manoah, only that God is a God of power.

How do we know when God acts in our lives? The prophet Malachi reported this conversation with between God and His People: God said, “I have loved you, but you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’” (Malachi 2)

God always knew that His people needed proof and evidence. His many plagues in Egypt before Pharaoh let the people go were more important to the Israelites than to Pharaoh, by displaying God’s presence and power to a people who had lived in a pagan land for four hundred years. Instead of an angel, God sent Moses to convey His huge message of freedom to the people

How do we know? God always knew that, separated from Him since the fall of Adam, human beings would need help to reconnect. The Old Testament tells of many of those “helps” supplied by God to His people; but the fullness of God’s plan to draw truly near to all people who would, arrived in the person of the one who would rise from death itself. During Lent we are reminded to look closely at that one and trace the evidence of something new and lasting in the person of Jesus and in his Resurrection.

Jesus also told his disciples, . . . I have told you these thing so that in me you may have peace. . . take heart! I have overcome the world.

Jesus spoke to his disciples the night before he was arrested: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of Truth. ( John 14:16-17) Few if any have kept a promise for over two thousand years, yet Christians on every continent attest to this promise being kept in their own lives.

How do we know? It’s in His Book.

Love in Him,

Prue