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Why I Believe In God
By Winkie Pratney

I believe in God
because I am a child of the age that asks of life, ' Why? '
so I walked a road of honest reason, searching,
to find each answer pointing like light in His direction.
I needed a pathway
I reached for reality
I hungered to live —
And, in truth, He was closer, - far closer than I dreamed.

I believe in God.
Each day this world declares Him;
His wisdom stamps each snowflake, ' Made in Heaven ' !
In the fresh chill of each new day
the air is alive with His closeness.
I feel His sky flare blue in praises above me,
watch a warm wind running ripples as if He breathes across
a field of glorious green;
I grip the good earth
and feel its rich and fertile river cry,
' He lives! '

How can I help but believe?
I believe in God
when something deep within cries out
that I am not a mere child of chance,
a lucky freak that somehow grew unguided
from mud without a mind.

I believe in God
for I am more than chemical change.
I am a man —
I know
I feel
I live
and love
and He Who made me in His image
is worthy of my worship.
I have known God's nearness
for I have feet of clay and there are times
when none could see if I should choose the wrong,
but when some sin would be so simple
and I feel it strangely to fascinate,
Someone rightly and ever seems to be there;
A Someone Who puts me on my honor;
Someone Who dares me do the difficult —
and no one is with me, my friend, no one … but God.

There is one Book that speaks to me of God;
it struck deep within my being
a sacred flame that did not and cannot die.

This Bible tells of other men who felt as lost as I
who came with childlike trust
and found He did not lie.
Is it so hard to believe
when we all record the day He came
to cut our time in two?
Who else but Jesus showed us God made flesh,
the perfect Man who cannot be denied?
What other launched a life like His
to lift this world in light and love,
then cheated death to send us power from on high?
And now
when earth-men walk among the stars
I know that the Creator entered and walked my world.

Yes,
I believe in God
for I have watched the men who do not care to own Him;
I've seen, with sickness, the little lives wrapped up in foolish pride,
with faces marked for all the world to see their sin, who
(just as did I also)
run from holy light
or tried to hide their selfish lives beneath a thin shell of right.
Oh, stand them once by a man who walks with God — and see!
Yes,
I knew men who said there was no God;
but I listened carefully as they died
and I knew full well that they had lied.
Say I am too young to be so sure,
but I am old enough to feel and see my generation's agony,
its brokenness and barrenness,
to watch it waste with fear and war and strife.

Yet I have also seen from every tongue and tribe
like springing grain amid the sterile stone,
men come alive to live in love,
to share and care beneath Christ's cross…
…and if you saw their smiles within you'd know why
I believe in God.

The day that I stopped running, this God found me.
Empty, trembling,
shaken with guilt and shame I came.
In a way I cannot possibly draw with words
He loved me
forgave me
restored and released me…
Then gave me His own precious Name.

Say what you will, or mock if you must
but He met me then and there,
and put in my heart
a homesickness for heaven
and to be with Him forever.
And I have heard the still, small Voice
Of Love and Guidance and Eternal Truth…
And today I call Him Friend.
Oh yes:
I believe in God, - my Redeemer, Saviour, Friend.

~ A Poem & Testimony by Winkie Pratney,
pastor & Bible Teacher

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http://www.myspace.com/winkiepratney