Well...if you're anything like me....then you don't believe anything for it's face value. You look deeper. Maybe saving a sick aunt is all he needed....but for some of us...it takes more.
When I got those gifts "from santa"....I checked the signiture of "santa"...and realized that it was the same writing as the Easter Bunny's, and the same as my mom's. Interesting, huh?
See...when I said that first prayer...and God told me it would be answered, I wasn't completely convinced. I gave it a chance, and had some patience...and before I knew it...it was a gift 10 times greater than what I had originally imagined. That's one of the ways that you can tell it's God......because it's much more than you would ever even dream, even when he tells you what's going to happen.
Obviously...I don't expect you to be able to believe in the same revalations that I, or Iceat had. They are not yours. They prove nothing to you. In fact...you could probably just say that we made it up...and feel better. So why even bring it up?
That's part of the reason that I don't share it...and probably similar to why Iceat hasn't shared his. Cause those revalations were not the ones that were intended to win-over the universal population...they were small ways in which God revealed himself to individual humans in larger ways than they could have imagined. At least...that's how mine was, and I like to keep it that way.
So when I got that gift from God....I looked into it. Could it be mere coincidence? Who else could have signed for God? Could it have been the fact that I was just hoping for it to happen one night?
Well it could.......but the probability of such prayers being answered are about 11023897634076 to 1, because of the amount detail involved in my answer, and how convoluted everything was.
It's one thing if God says...."Hey...you're about to get a car." And then you go buy a car. But it's a completely different thing if God says "Hey Darth...you're about to purchase a really nice car. But hey...when you go there...they're going to be a little too pricy for you. All you gotta do is say 'I'll put $1150 down' and they'll knock $5000 off the cost. Just wait until he says the word "fire" before you make the offer."
^And then that happens. (No...that's not my prayer...lol. But it's a good analogy for one of my experiences...including the verbal flag.)
What are the probabilities of the existant Santa's handwriting to be the same as your mother's? What about the wrapping of the actual present? Do they both wrap all gifts alike? Bags vs. Boxes vs. Envelopes? All of it?
Would a man in a big red suit who rides a sleigh of flying reindeer be more likely to have given me that gift than my mother who works 40 hour weeks at the school's cafeteria, where she earns REAL money? Would some dude up at the North Pole actually have a checklist for all the things that I've done wrong...when my Mom is the one who CAUGHT me doing all those things wrong?
Well...considering I've used this thought process for as long as I can remember....I can tell you......I don't ever remember believing in Santa. Seriously...I don't even know if I ever did. I remember faking it one year, so I wouldn't spoil the possibility of getting some presents (thinking my parents would quit playing santa if I quit playing ignorant)....but I don't remember actually thinking that Santa brought me presents. I think the Easter Bunny was more believable for a while, just because he hid plastic eggs in kids houses, rather than dropping off hundreds of dollars worth of copywrite infringments from elves who don't have money (you think they could get away with GIVING away toys that were created by large corporations?). That is...until the easter bunny started bringing presents, then I was sure he was fake.
But to this day...I can not give an explination for any of my answers, or the discussions surrounding them, or the complete twist of how extremely impossible the odds of it happening "accidentally" are, except that God...who told me it would happen.....and it happened...followed through with his answer to my prayers.
I wish I could make him answer your prayer.
I wish I could make everyone believe.
But this life is not about how easy things come...or the crazy odds at which you experience revalations.........it's about spreading the love of God, and that's what I try to accomplish, ultimately.
Maybe those coincidences would be enough for you to be sucked in to whatever is being placed in front of you.......but it wouldn't convince me. I'd need some pretty hard evidence to be pushed in any direction other than that which I choose. Christianity was a tough choice for me at first...because I thought I was eliminating any other possibility of any other probability out there. But being the rational being that I am...I still think about other possibilities.
Knowing that my God will let me choose whatever path I want to choose...with his help or not...and that he has given to me overly and abundantly is what has convinced me that this is where I need to be, and this is what I should be doing/believing.
Not just some coinkidink.
Join Date: May 2006
10-06-2006
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