This morning as I was getting ready to face the day, I noticed something on the television.  An ad for “hair club for women” was running.  Photos flew by of before and after shots of women. Most had been afflicted with bare spots or thinning mane and the “after” photos showed them with gloriously full tresses.

Then I saw it.  Down in the corner the small print said, “Results may vary.”

Ahh.  Yes, indeed.  Results may vary.  The old “caveat emptor.”

The ad might as well say “these are not typical,” as advertisers are forced to do by truth-in-advertising laws.

Sadly, in our culture we’re used to such come-ons and slick sales spiels. No one expects the used car salesman to tell you why we should be cautious in buying this particular car.  We’ve learned to turn a suspicious eye toward the seller of the house who cannot quit raving about all its fine points.  What, we wonder, is he not saying?

Which brings up another point…

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“He said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Stretch out your hand'” (Mark 3:5).

The very thing the man could not do Jesus asked of him.

“And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.”

To the young virgin of Nazareth, the angel of the Lord said, “For with God, nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

He seems to love doing the impossible.

The impossible. Such a novel concept.  As though anything were beyond the scope of the Creator of the galaxies.

I’m recalling that a college class in the late 1940s once expressed the doubt that God understood radar.  Radar?  Well, it was all the rage back then, a scientific thing that had given us a great advantage during the Second War, and people were just getting their minds around it.

These days, ninth graders understand radar.

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I sat in a hospital waiting room and heard the strangest thing.

Two women were arguing religion.  They were strangers to each other and soft-spoken and incredibly gracious.

It was like watching a slow-motion pillow fight.

The first must have been reading something, for she spoke out into the air a comment about the Ten Commandments. The second, on the other side of the room, looked up from her magazine and said, “Christ is the end of the law for those who believe.”

The first said, “Excuse me?”

The second woman repeated what she had said, and added, “It’s what the New Testament says now that Jesus has died for our sins.”

The first politely responded that, “Well, this list of commandments is so important, the classrooms of our schools ought to post them on their walls and every courtroom should display them.”

She said, “I try to keep them every day.”

The second woman said, “The just shall live by faith.”

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“If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46-47).

I believe in God because I believe in butterflies.

I believe in God because I’ve seen a baby and held one and watched it grow into adulthood.  And I have seen him hold babies of his own in his arms.

I believe in God because I watched the sunrise this morning.

I believe in God because of a lack of turbulence.  As the earth spins around its axis, as the earth speeds around its orbit, as our solar system zooms through the galaxy, and as the galaxy tears across the heavens at enormous speeds, you and I don’t feel a thing.  We can lay a ball on the ground today and it’s still there tomorrow morning, unmoved.  I find that truly amazing.

I believe in God because of Jesus.

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