Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Godwink Experience


Recently I was talking with a friend who is an agnostic about how I know for sure there is a God. Though he is still young, he is widely read and quite articulate about his agnostic faith. Though I could have given him a long list of Bible verses for why I believe in God that would have been pointless since he does not accept the Bible as truth. Therefore I shared with him some experiences that I have had in my life that proved to me that God is real.
I had my first supernatural experience when I was in the 8th grade. The church that I attended at the time did not believe that God did those things any more so I was left to sort out the experience on my own. As the years have gone by, I have had numerous experiences that can only be described as supernatural. One example is what I call the Green Bean Miracle. When I was a young father my daughter pulled a pot of boiling green beans off the stove. She should have been horribly burned. The green beans were in a circle around her body, with hot boiling water running all over the floor around her. But not a drop of boiling water or a speck of hot green bean was on her. It was a miracle. It is scientifically impossible for such a thing to happen, and yet it did. The Green Bean miracle is not based on faith because the miracle is a FACT. It actually happened. It was a real experience. I could make a list of similar experiences that have happened to me during my life just like the Green Bean miracle that proves to me that God is real. But to be honest, I don't need multiple experiences, because just ONE would have been enough. Each time I have another such experience; it just reinforces the FACT of God's existence in my mind.
Such experiences are actually quite common in our society. I asked a group of teenagers who attend the youth group at our church if they had any such experiences. Most of the teenagers in the group did not grow up in Christian homes and very few of them would be able to articulate their faith using theological terms. Yet, one by one they went around the room and shared stories of brain tumors shrinking, marriages being put back together, victory over various addictions, as well as a variety of physical healings. Though some of those teenagers have not yet made a commitment to become a Christian, the vast majority did believe there was a God because of the FACTS of their experiences.
I was pleasantly surprised to recently hear that a man named Squire Rushnell has written a book called "When God Winks." This book is filled with stories of these kinds of experiences which Rushnell has gathered from all over America. He calls these experiences "Godwinks." I like that term. Rushnell believes that when we have an experience that can only be described as supernatural, it is actually God winking at us to remind us that He is there and that He is involved in our lives. Rushnell is not some half crazy television preacher trying to make a quick buck off of naïve old ladies. He is a veteran ABC network television executive. Under his leadership the program "Good Morning America" rose to number one in its time slot and its ratings increased by 140%. He was also the person who developed the acclaimed Schoolhouse Rock series and the ABC After School Specials, which earned 75 Emmy Awards during his career. He left that lucrative and powerful career to travel the nation sharing how we can know for sure that God is real. You can order his book and read more about his life at his website: http://whengodwinks.com/
Perhaps it is time for all the skeptics among us to stop using the "I can't just take it on faith" argument and instead start looking at the FACTS of both God's existence and His involvement in our lives. If God has winked at YOU lately, leave a brief description of your experience in the comment section below. I will rejoice to read your story of your belief in God is based on the facts of your experience with Him.

17 comments:

  1. I just heard about Godwink this morining on Fox and am glad that you have written this. I'll pick up a copy of it. I was wondering if it was another "Conversations With God" type of book.

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  2. I think I will order the book "When God Winks." It looks good.

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  3. Amen! I still thank God for putting His arms around me that day. God just continues to amaze me everyday as He shows me that He can do what I call "the impossible." Blows me away.

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  4. I think it is interesting how people think God does not do the same things He used to do. If they believe that, they believe in the wrong God. God never changes; people are the ones who change. God has always done what He does and what He is now doing and what He will do. It is up to us to accept it or reject it.

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  5. Great article! However, I have a person who calls himself agnostic and he believes all of these "facts" are CIRCUMSTANCES!! What do we tell him???

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  6. Mickie,

    The scientific method always starts with a hypothesis which is basically an educated guess. Then you test that hypothesis in a controlled environment. You must be able to repeat the test numerous times before you can claim that your hypothesis is a FACT. But once you have done your tests, then you get to tell the world about your discovery.

    In the Christian experience there are literally millions upon millions of Godwink experiences. This is the "test" of faith that has been repeated so many times it cannot even be counted. Anyone who still claims these hundreds of millions of Godwink experiences are just coincidences is simply not being intellectually honest. Facts are facts. And millions of facts cannot be coincidence.

    Unless of course you want to be a dishonest skeptic. If a person wants to be dishonest intellectually, then you can't change their mind. They will just have to be ignorant of the truth. Hope that helps.

    Dr. T

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  7. Joanne Graves, Knox City, TexasNovember 11, 2009 at 8:32 PM

    I once had a kidney blockage and since I only have one kidney I was in critical condition. My temperature went too high (l06) and so the surgery to unblock the kidney had to be stopped. I was back in my hospital room the second afternoon and my daughter, Jackie, was
    in the room with me. A nurse came and took my temp and it was l04 and climbing. They had to call in the doctor but there was nothing they could do because I am alergic to all the medication that would bring a high fevor down.

    I turned to Jackie and told her that we had only one door open for us and that was to pray right then. We started praying, asking God to
    lower the tempurature. In a few minutes the nurse came back in the room and found me eating my supper. She slapped her hand on my forehead and said it felt like I no longer had a tempurature. She used her equipment to check it out and found no fevor at all even though only minutes had passed.

    She dashed out of the room and brought the head nurse back. She asked what had happened and I told her that we had had a prayer. They were all amazed.

    A few weeks later I returned for them to complete the surgery and the nurse remember me and said "Oh, you are the praying people." They told the other nurses and my room became a prayer place with others coming in to have prayer with us. No one doubted it was God that did this. It was a great experience.

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  8. Thank you, Dr. T. for this great blog post! It came up in a Google alert for "God wink" because I'm SQuire Rushnell's (the author of When God Winks) daughter and handle all of his mail and social media.

    Thank you for recommending his books to your readers via his website, www.whengodwinks.com.

    They can also email Godwink stories to us at whengodwinks@gmail.com or become a fan of the GOD winks Fan page on Facebook, which has gotten nearly 13,000 fans in ONE month!

    Best wishes and winks,

    Robin

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  9. Joan O' Connor, Spartanburg, SCNovember 13, 2009 at 4:08 PM

    Praise the Lord for the Green Bean Miracle and for sharing it.

    Yes, we have a miracle too.

    A few years ago on our way home from Rochester we had a car accident that should have been much worse than it was. But we could “feel” someone controlling our car. We spun around in a full circle on thruway due to road conditions. It felt like a carnival ride but wasn't much fun. We went into the grass, then something catapulted us back onto the thruway going in the right direction.

    I was mentally saying “goodbye” to my fiancé. BUT no cars were coming that could have hit us. We’ll never forget this “feeling” of deliverance, this “Carnival Ride” with our Lord.

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  10. For those of you who don't like my "experiencial" proof of God. Here is a website that gives additional scientific proof of God's existance.
    http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html?gclid=CKXr7rb1iJ4CFcx25QodbQs_tw

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  11. Dr. T,

    My heart really goes out to the agnostics out there. Do they ever wonder why they have trouble finding the ultimate purpose for their life? I counsel a guy who has trouble finding the purpose in his life. Fortunately, he's a Christian and knows that his ultimate purpose is through Christ. I have other agnostic friends as well that just don't understand the pleasure I have in knowing Christ and devoting my life to him. I guess I need to do like the little girl did in THE STORY OF RUBY BRIDGES, and pray for them.

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  12. Hi Terry,

    Great article! I, too, have had a miracle - 13 years ago I fell off a horse and sustained fractures of the top two vertebrae of my neck - the same two as Christopher Reeve - yet I was never paralyzed. I had surgery on it and had the halo, hard brace, soft brace, then physical therapy, and am completely recovered except for decreased range of motion in my neck. Who else but God could have prevented me from being paralyzed?!?

    Furthermore, those of us living in Vermont see some beautiful sights every day - the mountains, foliage every year, wildlife....no one but God could have created that!

    I'd like to hear an agnostic or atheist try to explain these!!

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  13. Margaret Champion, South CarolinaNovember 15, 2009 at 1:54 PM

    Thanks so much for sharing this! I have had a few of Godwinks myself. May God Bless You Today!

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  14. A couple months ago the car i was in rolled backwards down a hill with two pools and two houses at the bottom. Somehow it stopped, a man who was watching told me "someone was riding with you today". If thats not God winking i dont know what is :)Ill pick this book up.

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  15. Well said! God does have his ways of showing us he's real...I think it's pretty cool how he does that! Its amazing the things he does. Not even a week ago a couple of my friends went for a drive...and the truck spun completely out of control and rolled over. The driver doesn't have a scratch on him, and my other friend is very hurt- in a neck brace and she cant move. fortunately, she is not paralyzed. If her neck moved the littlest bit more, she would be.Thank God for that, I believe thats god working his magic :] Amen!

    -Aleah.

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  16. Here is another book along the same lines.
    http://www.mygodsightings.com/

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