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‘I’m a Christian, but the Bible’s all stories … ’

God’s hand on human affairs

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Originally published in Creation Extra, March 2014

CMI–Australia’s geologist Dr Tas Walker recently shared this account of his granddaughter Katie (18 yrs). It features those ‘little touches’ that God sometimes uses to remind us that He, not ‘chance’, is in control of the universe.

Wikimedia commons/Osioni (PD) 9961-giants-causeway
Giant’s Causeway.

Katie emailed Tas:

“I met this girl on the bus to uni today, and got chatting. Turns out she’s in 3rd year studying geology! I told her my grandad was a geologist, and she nodded ‘OK’ and looked bored. I asked her why geology interested her, and she explained [about rock types and minerals].
“We kept talking, and then I said you write articles on things like the Giant’s Causeway [in Ireland] and the Three Sisters [in Australia]. I said you travel all over the world giving talks—and said you’re part of Creation Ministries—and how your talks are about how all these things are evidence for a 6-day creation, and Noah’s Flood. I asked her if she’d heard about Noah’s Flood, and she looked stunned.
“I didn’t say anything more after that—and neither did she for ages! She just sat there staring out the bus window, but not in a bored way anymore. I hope the people sitting behind us felt the same way. Then she said, ‘Is one day, like, a billion years?’ I said, ‘No’.
“After a while she said, ‘So, he’s a creationist?’ I said ‘Yes.’ ‘And a geologist?’ [she asked]
‘Yes’. She looked like, ‘How is that even possible!?!?!’
“Then she said, ‘I’m a Christian, but [the Bible’s] all stories.’ I said you wrote articles for Creation Ministries on creation.com. She didn’t say anything for ages, and I was just praying that God would get her interested and make her look you up!

Prayer answered

“After a while, she turned to me again and said, ‘It’s Creation Ministries, right?’ Inside I thought, ‘Yes! Score!’. As she got off the bus, she said she hoped I’d ‘find my calling in my studies.’”

Katie continued, “I wanted to make sure that she could find you with the words ‘Creation Ministries’ on Google… sure enough, creation.com is top of the list. And what’s more—I got on the website, and the top article for today is the Giant’s Causeway and Noah’s Flood! Whooo-hoo!!”

The ‘no. 2’ article on the CMI website that day was also about geology, Katie realized, and said, “No idea what her name is, but I’m praying she’ll look you up with an open heart.”

‘Coincidences’ multiply

A short while later, she emailed her granddad again, saying, “I can’t believe it—the featured clip on creation.com today is ‘Day’ in Genesis—I’m guessing it’s about the literal 6 days? How cool is that!?”

Katie’s point of course was that God seemed to be orchestrating things to be relevant to her ‘chance’ encounter on that day. And a short time later she emailed again: “Guess what [CMI’s website’s] ‘product on special’ is today? 15 Reasons to Take Genesis as History!”

Whether all that will lead to this student’s conversion to the truth of God’s Word (which these days is not, sadly, identical to saying, ‘I’m a Christian’), or whether God intended all those ‘coincidences’ for other purposes (such as our encouragement) is of course in His hands. However, it illustrates a number of things very relevant to CMI’s ministry and mode of operation.

People need creation information!

One concerns our methodology of reaching as many people as possible—constrained by a culture in which Christianity no longer ‘has the microphone’. Indeed, society has been so heavily ‘evolutionized’ that it is frankly hard to get a proper hearing for the view, no matter how cogently argued, that Genesis is true history—even in churches! So, professing Christians, like the young geology student earlier, have been largely conditioned to see OT history, the logical foundation of the Gospel, as ‘just a bunch of stories’. No wonder that so many young people today leave the church, and that even those who stay see it as increasingly irrelevant, and many express sympathy and support for blatantly antibiblical notions like ‘gay marriage’.

How the method works in practice

Thus, even a heavily advertised public creation meeting attracts next to no unchurched attendees. So why is there a continual flow of conversion testimonies to CMI offices around the globe? The strategy of reaching believers, to arm and motivate them to reach unbelievers, is the key. That’s why we go to churches and major on resources. Often people in those churches are not aware of the crucial importance of this issue—until a CMI speaker is able to come to their morning service and ‘switch on the lights’.

It’s this pumping out of buckets of information into the community via Christians—using the magazine, books, DVDs and the website—which leads to the transformed lives and conversions. We know that by faithfully and diligently disseminating truckloads of information each year (like casting our bread upon the waters, so to speak) we will often see God use it to bring about His purposes. (Like the man who once wrote to say he became a Christian through someone, motivated by CMI outreach, giving him a Creation magazine subscription. He then subscribed for five friends, of whom four have since become Christians!)

God is the chief player in salvation—but all believers are called to do their part, too. Thank you so much to those ‘Katies’ who help spread the message—and to those who faithfully support this ongoing effort.

Published: 10 September 2015