by Dan Leone

On April 16, 2008, I had a very profound experience that I would like to share with all of you. You see, it must have been my turn to experience the very presence of God Himself in the simplest of ways. You may even call it a “miracle”.

 As a recruiter for a very large construction firm, I travel to many colleges and universities across the country to recruit engineers. For some weeks before April 16th, I have to admit that I was really struggling with my job, my home life, and my relationship with the Lord. I was at a point of having doubts that God even knew that I existed or that He was even interested in me or any of my struggles in life. On that morning of April 16th, I was scheduled to catch a flight to Blacksburg, Virginia, the home of Virginia Tech to do a Career Fair and some recruiting. I had the alarm clock set but the snooze button was too tempting and so I pressed it one more time for another 5 minutes of sleep. Well, you guessed it, I woke in a panic looking at the clock and realized that I had barely enough time to eat a quick breakfast, check my email, let the cat out and head off to the airport. I fired up the laptop as I always do every morning. On this particular morning, there was only one single email in the “in” folder from a very close Christian friend named Al Vela. I usually have dozens of emails but not today. That seemed very odd to me. “Thank you God, I only have time for this one email this morning”. Al likes to send out those kinds of emails that you have to read and then send out to 10 others or else you’ll feel guilty all day long. I read the email and there was a picture of Jesus holding a lantern, standing at the door knocking to come in but there was no handle on the outside of the door. You may have seen this popular picture. Under the picture, the caption simply said “Dan, Let Jesus into your life today”.  Well I decided to delete the email. My excuse was that I didn’t have time to send it to ten of my friends and besides…. “what good would it do. I’m running late and I need to head for the airport”. I did feel guilty about deleting the email and that stuck with me for the longest time afterward. I felt like I slammed the door in Jesus’ face and that really bothered me.

 As I was getting ready to leave, my wife woke up and asked where I was off to today and I said “Well honey, today I’m off to Virginia Tech to recruit.” Her eyes lit up as she informed me that today, April 16th was the one year anniversary of the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech. Because I was going to Virginia Tech that day, she asked me if I wanted to take a book to read on the plane that was given to her by a close friend.  She claimed that the book changed the life of a woman whose daughter was killed that day on campus by the lone gunman. She said the woman had stopped believing in God until she read this book and was so moved by the book that she even petitioned the author to allow her to travel around the country speaking and promoting the book on his behalf. The author refused her request but somehow, she got the word out about her conversion and my wife’s friend caught wind of it, bought the book and eventually handed it down to my wife to read.

I usually sleep on a plane but this morning I said sure, what the heck, I’ll take the book along for the ride. I made it to the airport in plenty of time, got settled into my seat right next to a women who was already busy writing in her daily journal. After a quick snooze, I looked down at my briefcase; saw the book sticking out and so I pulled it out and decided to read a chapter or two. The name of the book is Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To by Anthony Destefano. Hmmmmm sounds interesting. I can’t wait to ask Him where He’s been lately because my prayers seemed like they were being ignored …so I thought. The title of the first chapter really caught my interest. “God, please show me that you exist”. The author has a very unique style of preparing the reader to say the prayer somewhere in the middle of the chapter.  I wanted God to show me He exists. We all want that. You see, in our simple human nature, we demand proof.
If God wants to, he can always perform a great miracle for us or show us some kind of vision. But if he were to do that, we would no longer need to believe in something we couldn't see. We'd have that "scientific" evidence once and for all. And that's exactly what some people ask God to do including myself. We want a miracle to prove His existence! We want to hear the voice of God announcing His presence in a silent room. We want to see an angel appear before our eyes or perhaps a chair or a desk to move by itself across the floor.
As I began to read the chapter, the woman next to me looked over to see what it was I was reading. I just continued reading as if I were alone, 40,000 feet above the earth without any distractions. I finally came to the part of the book where the author asked me to place the book down on my lap, close my eyes, and with all the honesty and heartfelt desire I could muster, simply say the words “God, please show me that you exist”. I placed the book on my lap, I closed my eyes and with all my strength I said quietly “Lord, things lately have been pretty tough for me, I just need to know that you are there and that you really do care about me and so God, please…please show me that you exist”. I opened my eyes and then started to read the very next paragraph in the book and this is word for word, what I read.
“There is a beautiful 19th century painting that illustrates this point well. It’s called The Light of the World. In it, Christ is shown holding a lantern, standing outside a little cottage on a dark, stormy night. He is knocking on the door of the home, waiting to be let in, but the occupant, unseen behind the door, does nothing. The figure of Christ bathed in a golden green light is supremely serene and looks as if He is prepared to stay outside the cottage door knocking forever. It is a striking image because of what it says about the light of truth in a dark world. But the really interesting thing about the painting is that there is a curious detail missing. If you look closely at the door of the home, you will see that there is not a knob or a latch anywhere to be found. The theological point is simple….. the door to the human heart can be opened only from the inside. God will never force his way in.”
At that moment, with tears in my eyes, I turned to the woman next to me a simply asked her “Do you believe that God exists?” She assured me that she did believe and I just smiled at her, leaned back into my seat and said “me too.” Think about it, there were too many things that would have had to line up for this to be a coincidence. I could have been traveling anywhere in the country. It could have been on any other date than the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre and it was because of that, that my wife gave me this book that God wanted me to read. And of course who could forget Al Vela’s email that could have been about any other subject on any other day where I had plenty of time to gladly forward to 10 others. But it was about letting God into your life, a prayer He couldn’t wait to answer while a sat 40,000 feet above the earth traveling at 500 miles an hour!
If you simply ask God to show you that He exists, without all the lightning and thunder, you can expect to be answered just as clearly but without all the heroic sacrifice. God will always give you a sign of his presence - a real, genuine, bona fide sign. The exact nature of this sign will be up to Him, of course. We always have to remember that God is sovereign and can do anything He likes. But you can be sure it will be something out of the ordinary. Something that - to you at least - will border on the supernatural. It might be something "big" or something small; dramatic or quiet; profound or simple. It might come to you through the conversation of a friend or even while you are at a church service. It might even come to you while you're here reading this testimony! God speaks to all of us in many different ways and at different times. We just need to take a moment to pray and ask Him to show us a sign of His magnificent presence!
Amen