Certainty of God to me
"Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." Hosea 6:3.
When asked by those who do not know, or who pretend not to know, whence comes my "belief" in God?
I tell them right away that I do not believe in God; rather I know God. I know God for myself based on trial, based on my own many personal deliverances from dangers seen and unseen, from terrors untold!
I tell them that I embody God's essence in my existence , which but for God's grace could never be.
I tell them that the sunrise and sunset; the tide's ebb and flow; the seeds that yield their fruit and the heavens their rains, are evidence, are proof of God. So too is mathematics, astronomy, farming, sailing, geometry, physics, biology, chemistry, botany, art, music, faith.
I do not disdain any one's beliefs nor any dutiful believers. But, for me, mere profession of "belief" is faraway too weak, and too feeble.
To me, to know God for oneself is to love God as oneself and to love one's neighbor as oneself. Amen.
