"O God, where are You when I need You?"

       Each day, millions pray. In China, Japan, Southeast Asia, prayers are recited in Buddhist temples, Shintoist pagodas; prayer wheels turn in dozens of Nepalese streams. In Europe, Central and South America; across the United States and Canada, millions pray each day. What happens to all those prayers? Where do they go? Does anyone hear them? Are very many of them answered? Do you pray? Are your prayers answered?

       During World War II, Catholic mothers in Germany and France prayed that their sons would be granted safety, and victory. Priests recited petitions in the same language, (Latin), to the same God, asking for the same thing. But, during the German advance into France, those prayers went up to God from opposing sides. Wasn't this a little confusing to God?

        Each Sunday, tens of millions go to church; tens of millions more see religious programs on television. They pray. They engage in responsive readings; millions recite the "Lord's Prayer" each week. How many of those prayers are answered—really answered, in a definitive, perhaps even a spectacular way?

        What about you? Do you pray? Are your prayers answered in a tangible, positive way, leaving absolutely no doubt in your mind?

        Sometimes, failing to receive an answer to prayer can prove frustrating, especially to children. For example, a young lad named Peter once wrote a letter to God. You've probably seen samples of such letters—national magazines have published them, and they have been the subject of humorous comment on TV talk shows. Little Peter had been taught about God. He believed God was good, kind—that He was all-powerful, and could do anything. He saw his parents pray at home, in church. Then, disaster struck. When his teacher asked him to write a letter to God about it, Peter wrote, "Dear God: My brother Tommy was hit by a car. My mother prayed to you—and so did I. We begged you to let him live, but you wouldn't. He was only two years old, so he couldn't have sinned that bad. You didn't have to punish him that way ... you could have saved my little brother, but you let him die. You broke my mother's heart. How can I love you, God?"

        Peter's letter is exactly the way millions feel. Why does God hide Himself? Why is He so unreal to us? Why does God allow wars, sickness and disease, rape, murder, tragedy, accidents, death? For centuries, man has sought the answers to these painful questions. Where is God when you're really in pain?

        Philosophers and theologians alike fail to provide us with ready answers. As a newspaper columnist wrote, "Suffering of innocent people is something we cannot understand."

        "Surely, His ways are mysterious, and past finding out," intones the theologian, quoting scripture.

        Pastors have sought for generations to comfort the bereaved at funerals—trying to provide some insight into the bitter question WHY? Why this or that person—why now? And why, that way? Why are children born malformed, deaf, blind, dumb? Why crib death? Are there any answers, or must we remain forever helplessly asking "why"?

        We humans tend to blame God for our failures and congratulate ourselves for our successes. When we're comfortable, successful, happy, we have no special need of God. But when we're sick, frightened, poverty-stricken, or experiencing the loss of a loved one—we cry out to Him in anguish of soul. We think of so many ways in which it all seems so unfair, somehow.

        One man professed to be an atheist because he couldn't rationalize suffering and the goodness of an all-powerful God. He wrote, "if I had the power to fashion the universe and remake it nearer my heart's desire, there would be no blind, no deaf, no dumb; there would be no crippled, and each child born would live free of disease and possess a mentality capable of withstanding all the rebuffs of life. There would be no deaths by accident. There would be no earthquakes, cyclones or tornadoes. Unless and until such a condition comes to pass, and we may live free from disease, sorrow and suffering, there is no God in this vast universe worthy of homage." At first glance, this may sound like a logical enough position. But on second thought, what causes blindness, deafness, dumbness, endemic disease? What causes accidents—why do tragedies occur? The atheist didn't consider the element of free moral agency. Since there is a God, and God has created we human beings with a mind; with free choice, He has given us personal control over our own lives.

        Man has, in too many cases, invited God out of his life. God has cooperated. God does not produce "Monday-morning automobiles" (cars produced by assembly-line workers with Monday-morning hangovers) with twenty-five easily discernable factory defects—careless, hung-over workmen do. God does not force mothers to turn their attention to morning sitcoms or soaps while their children stray from the yard to dash into the street after a rolling ball; God does not produce careless, indifferent, slipshod workmanship in products which often betray their users. God is not the One who causes accidents—men are. Yet, when accidents occur, man is quick to call out to God for relief—sometimes bitterly indicting a seemingly uncaring Deity for aloofness.

        But is it God who is aloof, or we humans who ignore Him, and His will in our lives? Would you want God interfering in your personal life on a daily basis? Think about it.

        Are you a smoker? I smoked for about 8 years, and it was a terrible ordeal to quit. Finally, with God's help, and by discontinuing some associations; quitting the bowling league, staying away from situations where I was tempted to smoke, I broke the two-pack-a-day habit I had during my years in the Navy. I quit in 1953. That was about two years before Dr. Cuyler Hammond released his report showing the correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer—and years before the explosion of filter tips, longer cigarettes, and all the advertisements about the amount of "tar" contained in each. Today, cigarette advertising is banned from television; a clear warning is required on each ad, or package, saying smoking causes lung cancer.

        If you smoke, would you like God to prevent it?

        Try to imagine the scene, if someone who smoked was not necessarily an atheist, but not devoutly religious, either. Perhaps our smoker believes God may exist, perhaps goes to church a time or two each year, watches a religious TV program now and then; thinks he has all the bases covered.

        But, one day, he tries to reach for his shirt pocket to extract a cigarette. Suddenly, his hand is stopped short of his shirt by some invisible, powerful force. He is shocked, wondering if he is having seizure, a cramp, an epileptic fit. He tries with the other hand. Just as he is about to extract the pack, his arm is stopped in mid-air by a powerful., unseen force! He seizes the arm with his other hand, tries to guide it to his shirt pocket. Again, some compelling force stops him from reaching his cigarettes! He calls to a friend, and asks him to reach his cigarettes. His friend tries it—only to be stopped by some sort of seizure. They look at each other in dumbfounded amazement. The smoker bends over, shakes his shirt, and the cigarettes fall to the floor. He tries to reach them. He can't. some power prevents it. Sobbing in desperation, bewildered by what's happening, he asks his friend to light up, and blow smoke in his face. The friend lights a cigarette, and tries to blow smoke into his face. But the smoke simply disappears as it comes out of his mouth! Our smoker, bewildered, frightened, angry, frustrated, throws himself to the ground in a mindless frenzy! Finally, he is carried to a padded cell, placed in a straightjacket, so he can't hurt himself, or commit suicide!

        Unrealistic? Not when you think about it. Apply the same scene to a developing affair between a married person and a friend. What if their attempts at physical contact were somehow barred by the intervention of a powerful force—an invisible presence?

        What if God prevented you from doing anything which was harmful to you? it might give you better health, prolong your life, prevent accidents—but it would also remove your free moral agency; it would take away volition; make you into a robot, an automaton. God is not interested in producing robots—He is interested in reproducing after His own kind; the family of God! And He wants the development of righteous, holy character, not the bovine acquiescence of a pre-programmed robot. The atheist was wrong. The very fact that we have free moral agency; the fact that God allows us to choose between good and evil proves there is a God.

        Accidents, tragedies are heart-breaking, difficult to understand. But God does not cause them—He merely fails to prevent them, in the same fashion that He does not intrude into our lives in a forceful sense; does not prevent us from doing things that are harmful to us.

        Is there a God? If SO, can you prove it? Is God a personal Being, who hears and answers prayers? Of course, such a question is deserving of a book, or several of them. But yes, there is a God, and you can prove it. How? By the laws of science; by history, archaeology, by logic, and by the Bible.

        There are seven proofs God exists. Each is deserving of a book to thoroughly explain, but in brief, they are:

        (1) CREATION. Matter exists. The universe exists. It is. Our own galaxy, and our vast solar system, with our "orange dwarf star," the sun, positioned precisely where it needs to be to provide stored energy for our fossil fuels, daylight, our seasons; all this is but an infinitesimal part of what is actually there—the universe. Our own galaxy is said to consist of two hundred billion, billion stars—many of them much larger than our sun. The good, green earth is said to be like one speck of sand in all the seashores on earth, in comparison to its place in our galaxy. No-one doubts the universe, we merely stand in awe of it—heart-stopping, mind-boggling, breathtaking awe. Matter exists. We exist. Creation—the incredible array of interdependent, symbiotic life forms—it is. Your logical mind demands a Creator for a creation.

        (2) LAW. And what of the forces that act upon creation? What of the laws of thermodynamics; of the conservation of energy? What of the laws which uphold the nuclear reaction in our sun which gives us heat and light? Think of the irrevocable, immutable, absolute laws of physics, chemistry, of the physical sciences. What of the cleavage properties of minerals? The laws governing how they form, or are broken down? What of gravity, the magnetic field of earth, inertia? Science must work within such laws to invent, design, and produce the wondrous machines that can make life so abundant. Aerodynamics is a case in point. Aircraft are designed so as to overcome drag by devices such as jet or propeller-driven engines and airfoils, or wings, which produce lift. Bricks can't fly—but airplanes can. Science must comply with existing laws, finding efficient means to obey principles and laws which are immutable, unchangeable, from creation. When those laws are broken, we suffer. Break the laws, and they break us. Get in harmony with them, obey them, and they bless us. Immutable laws—the laws governing the properties of creation itself—these require a great LAWGIVER.

        (3) LIFE. You and I are alive. Billions of creatures, from man to huge blue whales; from microorganisms to yellowfin tuna; from tiny shrews to elephants, we all share something we call "life." Life is a true cycle. It is broken only by death, and its only beginning is through pre-existing life of the same kind.

        Evolutionary thought proposes that randomness produced life. Do explosions in print shops produce dictionaries and encyclopedias? Think of the myriad forms of life—plant, animal, fish, bird, insect, microbacterial life. Does your logical mind believe life came from the not-living? No. It demands that life comes from life—just as you came from your parents, and they from their parents, and so-on. Life requires a Great Lifegiver! All life must come from a life SOURCE!

        (4) DESIGN. Look around you at the incredible design of our universe, our solar system, the earth, and all of matter, all life forms.

        Think of your own body; your mind. Our marvelously-constructed bodies are an absolute miracle of design. Is anything superior, in the known universe, to the human hand? With it, we can perform fantastic feats; from concert violinist to skillful surgeon, from champion boxer to astronaut; from architect to artist—the human hand is a marvel of engineering design.

        What of the eye? Have you ever bothered to renew the smorgasbord of knowledge you received during your years of formal education—to reacquaint yourself with the functions of your own body? Study an encyclopedia on the human eye; study our muscular, digestive, nervous, skeletal, circulatory systems. Study articles on our vital organs; glands that affect our growth, reproduction, physical health, digestion, mental ability. Think of the feather of a bird, the wing of a fly; the symbiotic relationship between blue whales and plankton, or krill. What of the food chain—the microorganisms that produce humus; soil that grows herbs, vegetables, and fruit; our digestive systems with bacteria that help us utilize our sustaining foods; our blood stream that carries life-giving oxygen and foods to our cells?

        Wherever you look in nature, you see harmonious, intricate, breathtaking design. Such marvels of design require a Great DESIGNER! Intricate design is not the result of blind accident, of happenstance, any more than a Boeing 747 could grow like fungus in a field.

        (5) SUSTAINER. What of the continual functioning of the universe itself? What of the controlled forces we see at work; from gravity to erosion—the exact place of the continental masses in relationship to each other; the earth's tectonic plates, great oceans with their powerful currents, polar ice caps, weather systems?

        What keeps it all going? Why is it so dependable, so constant? Again, laws. The sustaining of such laws—the seemingly-guaranteed, aeons-long, continuous operation of forces and energies which, if they acted in capricious operation of forces and energies which, if they acted in capricious disarray, would eradicate man from this earth, are instead dependable, lawful, constantly predictable. Laws governing the conservation of energy; the continual intake of carbon 14 into living things from the sun; the gradual breakdown of radioactive carbon into lead; the deposition of rocks and forming of strata; the daily tides; the earth's annual journey around the sun, the moon's monthly journey around the earth; our weather and seasons—such laws operate like a finely-tuned Swiss watch. Why? How? All this requires a sustaining force—a Great SUSTAINER!

        (6) FULFILLED PROPHECY. Another great proof God exists is found through studying the many examples of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible. There were many, many prophecies which portrayed the coming of Christ as Messiah; many others which were fulfilled in specific things He said, or did. The Gospels relate these—continual references are made as to how Christ fulfilled this or that prophecy, spoken or written centuries before.

        Are you a doubter? Study the 11th chapter of Daniel with Rawlinson's Ancient History and other profane sources to hand. In this remarkable chapter, you will see generations of kings; the Seleucidae of Syria and the lesser Pharoahs of Egypt, the Ptolmeys, locked in bitter struggle over Palestine. Hundreds of years before the fact, God's prophet Daniel was given dreams and visions of what was to become history. He foretold the rise and fall of the ancient Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greco-Macedonian Empire; the death of Alexander the Great and the division of his empire by his four generals; the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

        There are dozens of other examples. Theological libraries are filled with books attesting to the remarkable accuracy of the Prophets of old. Great city states and empires have come and gone—their emergence and destruction clearly set down in Bible prophecy centuries before it happened. Ancient Tyre, Sidon, Babylon, Rome all are mentioned, and in some cases, in fine detail. Bible prophecy and history cannot be separated.

        Will skeptics deny history and archaeology? The monuments and ancient buildings of the near east and Mediterranean world bear silent testimony to many pages of fulfilled Bible prophecy. Rome itself was predicted to rise and fall—and experience successive revivals down into our time. Christ was the greatest of all prophets—and who can deny that He prophesied of our own time, when He warned that if God did not cut short the days, a time would come when all human life could be erased from the earth?

        He said, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved [alive], but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened" (Matthew 24:21, 22). Clearly, Jesus spoke of a time in which the destruction of humanity would finally become possible—our time, now. Yet, He gives us glorious hope in the face of awesome weapons of destruction—for He reaffirms that God does exist; that He will cut short the days of global chaos; that He will intervene to save mankind from himself.

        Not only are there hundreds of fulfilled prophecies of the past; those which are absolutely, corroborated by history and the spade of the archaeologist, but there are prophecies which apply to our modern times, as well. Fulfilled prophecy is surely a proof God exists.

       (7) ANSWERED PRAYER. Now we come to the most personal proof—a proof God exists that is absolute, incontrovertible, to those of us who have received dramatic, undeniable answers to prayer. Atheists and skeptics will of course deny answered prayer, placing it on the level of a placebo. Arguing about the historical accounts concerning Christ's miracles is useless, for there are no living witnesses, and, in any case, the skeptic would discount them as unreliable. But to the believer—the individual who has experienced, seen, felt, known the answer to prayer in a vivid, undeniable, personal experience, the existence of a loving, powerful God is clearly proved. I know God answers prayers—I know, by the same token, that there are many prayers He seems not to answer—or perhaps defers to answer.

        A few days after I had begun writing this book, my wife and I enjoyed a visit from my sister, Beverly. She brought with her from California two letters she had received from an old friend of the family—letters written by my mother. One had been written from Astoria, Oregon, in 1927, almost three years before I was born. In it, my mother told of an absolutely dumbfounding, inspiring, miraculous answer to prayer. I read the letter for the first time never having known of its existence before, only the morning before writing these lines. My mother related how she had been bitten on the arm by an Airedale dog; a rather serious wound. She went to the doctor, who cleansed and bandaged it.

        But a couple of days later, she drove a thorn from a rose bush deep into her little finger. It became infected, and she developed blood poisoning. Then, while under the doctor's care for this development, she contracted a severe case of laryngitis. She wrote to her friend that it had developed into what they commonly called "quinsy" at that time. The doctor lanced the infection several times, but it refused to heal up. She had a terrible fever, but she finally seemed to stabilize.

        The doctor visited her several times. Finally, he said he would have to open the finger to scrape the bone, in order to rid her of the infection. Then came the day when my mother's jaw locked shut. She could neither eat nor drink; her body weight, a normal 102 or so, had gone down to 84! She was very near death, and the doctor plainly indicated such, not venturing how long she had. But a neighbor lady asked my father and my mother's sister, my aunt Bertha, if the family believed in "divine healing," or answers to prayer. My mother had been reared a Methodist, my father a Quaker. They said yes, they did. The neighbor lady told them of a "Christian family" who she said had "great faith," and who believed in prayer. She asked if it would be all right if they came over to pray for my mother.

        My mom's letter, written so long ago, related how the man and his wife, together with the neighbor lady, joined my father and mother at Mom's bedside. He began to pray in a quiet, sober manner, almost as if in conversation with God, reminding God of His promises to heal—quoting scriptures which confirmed those promises. He pulled out a small vial of olive oil and anointed her forehead with oil, laying his hands on her head. Then, he thanked God for having heard and answered the prayer—even before he got up from his knees! He sounded sure, as if they already had received the answer!

        My mom's letter related how she immediately sat up; her jaw loosened, she was able to drink something. Though it was winter, she got out of bed, put on her coat, and walked outside with my father, to take a brief stroll under the stars, thanking God. She had been confined to bed for so long, she felt she had to get up, and go outside.

        She related how the large abscesses in her throat, swollen hugely both inside and out, had suddenly disappeared! The pain and fever left! She was immediately strengthened! She went back into the house, went to sleep—the first good, full night's sleep in weeks, slept until almost noon the next day, and then got up and went about her household chores again. The doctor was dumbfounded—he openly admitted it was a miracle! A day or so later, my father's brother and his wife came to see my mother, expecting to find her near death.

        When she walked out of the house to meet their car in the driveway, they looked as if they had seen a ghost, my mother wrote.

        I had heard my parents describe this miraculous healing many times while I was growing up—but to see my mother's own handwriting in a letter she had written to a dear friend in Iowa; a letter which had been in the possession of her friend's family all these years—a letter I didn't know existed—and to read it now, well, I can't help wondering if God wanted me to put it into this book as a source of inspiration and encouragement to many who desperately need an answer to prayer.

        Miracles do happen. Prayers are answered. I know. I wouldn't be here if they weren't! I literally owe my life to my mother's neighbor friends; to my mother's faith, and to God.

        But there is much more to it than mere need; even desperate need. There are certain conditions to prayer--some requirements on our part.

        Few seem to understand that God has made answered prayer conditional. That is, there are keys to answered prayer; formulas. In this book, using the outline of the famous " Lord's Prayer," we shall see what those formulas are. By the time you have finished this book, you will understand, as never before, why so many prayers seem to go unanswered--and you will understand how to receive an answer to your own personal, heartfelt prayers to God.

        Hopefully, you will never again cry out, "O God, where are You when I need You?"