My Testimony – by Joe Palcsak

My Testimony – by Joe Palcsak  ([email protected])

(I share my testimony in the hope that it will help someone)

I have always been fascinated by the ultimate questions of life – why are we here, why does anything exist, etc. My highest value has always been to know what is true. Some people act as if they wish a thing to be true hard enough, it will be true. I need to know what is true regardless of whether I want it to be true. I left college a committed Darwinist. Based on what I had been taught, I believed that the inorganic cause-and-effect natural world was a sufficient explanation for everything. I saw no need for God and spent the first three decades of my adult life describing myself as an atheist. That all began to change on September 12, 2001, the day after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

That day, many were saying that we should learn why these people did what they did. This struck me as perfectly reasonable, so I began investigating why they did what they did. For the next few years, I became immersed in a detailed study of Islam. I became instantly consumed. With the rarest exception, I spent several hours a night in my research.

One day, my wife – a beautiful and loving life-long Christian – declared to me, “I need a church!” Then she added, “I found one that you might be OK with.” This meant that I was going to church with her. The church turned out to be the local Unitarian church. Now to paint all Unitarians with a slightly unfair brush, this church tolerated pretty much any belief – except Christianity. With no solid spiritual or moral foundation, the sermons there tended to be what they considered “social justice” sermons. But on one Sunday, the sermon title interested me: “Intelligent Design: Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo.” I had heard the term but did not know what it meant, and I looked forward to learning about ID, but with nefarious motives: I wanted to be able to defeat their arguments. But this sermon would offer help. It was nothing more than a rant. But the Lord had prepared me…

During that period of my life, I was spending a lot of time in my car alone, listening to talk radio. The Tuesday after the sermon, there was a debate between two scientists: ID vs. Darwinian evolution. I was excited to listen in on a butt-kicking. And a butt-kicking is exactly what I got! Only it was the ID guy, who presented a logical, well-reasoned defense of his position, backed by plenty of solid data. Meanwhile, the Darwinist offered little more than, well, an anti-ID rant. I was shaken. But by Thursday morning I was able to rationalize to myself that what I had heard was a one-off. As fate would have it, on Thursday morning, a different talk radio show hosted the very same debate, but between 2 different scientists (actually, the format proved to be 2 against 1 as the show’s host and moderator, an unapologetic Darwinist, was also an active participant). It didn’t matter. The result was the same. And though these two Darwinists put more substance on the table than the Tuesday guy, the ID champion won the day. Easily. Even the host had to admit as much.

I now had a different but even more fascinating question to occupy my evening studies: am I the deliberate product of a Creator, and if so, how can I learn everything I possibly can about Him? I was asking a question that had the potential to destroy my worldview, but I had to know. Honestly, it did not take long at all. The evidence for intelligent design is overwhelming. And in my quest to learn about my Creator, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus also proved overwhelming.

C.S. Lewis said that if God raised Jesus from the dead, that is the most important thing we can know and if God did not raise Jesus from the dead, that is the most important thing we can know. He’s right. If God raised Jesus from the dead, He is who He says He is. It really is that simple. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus constitute the central event of human history. It is therefore no surprise that the historical record is rich with plenty of excellent data on the resurrection. An objective study of the available data confirms the resurrection as established fact. Even unbelieving (truly objective) historians will concede that the data point to the truth of the resurrection. But they will hold on to their unbelief based not on the data, but on their conviction that miracles do not happen.

Honestly, the evidence for the resurrection is enough for me; the evidence for the intelligent design of life is icing on the cake. And make no mistake: every new discovery at the molecular level confirms that all life – to include the simplest single cell organism – relies on the most advanced data processing meta-systems and the most breathtakingly advanced engineering marvels we have ever encountered, putting exclamation point after exclamation point on the truth of ID and driving nail after nail into the coffin of any and every abiogenesis story.

I began to see that the evidence for God is everywhere (how did I miss it?) and became familiar with several other strong lines of evidence; notably the evidence from the universe, the evidence from the Bible, and the evidence from the existence of objective morality. Each of these five lines of evidence is very powerful in its own right. Collectively they build an overwhelming case that no sincere objective seeker can dismiss.

So, unlike the typical testimonial, my journey to faith was purely intellectual. But now I would like to pivot a bit and share two miracles in my life that cannot be explained by medical science…

APPENDIX: 2 MEDICAL MIRACLES

#1. I inherited a genetic condition from my mother, called “Schatzki Ring;” a gradual narrowing at the base of the esophagus. Mine would get so bad that it became difficult to impossible to pass any food through my esophagus. It required a stretching procedure every 18 months to restore the opening. In November 2013, the 18-month cycle had fully matured, and I could barely eat any solid food. Unfortunately, my doctor could not fit me in before Thanksgiving. There is a man in our fellowship with the gift of healing. I turned to him. I asked him to anoint me with oil and pray over me for the healing of my Schatzki Ring. After his blessing I enjoyed dinner that evening with no problem, as if I had a normal esophagus. It is going on 12 years now and I have had no problem eating anything and I have not had any stretching procedures. You can ask any doctor: there is no cure for Schatzki Ring. Medical science has no explanation for my healing.

#2. In 2019 I was diagnosed with 2 torn biceps and 2 torn rotator cuffs. My surgeon advised that we do nothing about the biceps, but the rotator cuffs could be fixed with surgery. The plan was to fix my left cuff first, then the right cuff after the left had healed. Everything went well with the left cuff, and a March appointment was scheduled to finalize plans for surgery on the right cuff. Before the appointment, the covid lockdown was put in place, putting all “elective” surgeries on hold and rendering our appointment pointless. But by March, the pain in my right rotator cuff had become constant and unbearable. I lived the next three months in agony, barely getting any sleep. By June I had had enough. I once again turned to the people I fellowship with and at our next Monday night Bible study, I asked for hands to be laid on me to take away the pain (this is an important detail). Several brothers and sisters laid hands over me and prayed for the Lord to take away the pain. I went home that night and slept like a baby and when I woke up on Tuesday morning, the pain was gone! Shortly thereafter, the appointment with my surgeon was re-scheduled for July. When I showed up, he asked me how the pain was doing. I told him how the Lord had taken it away and that I had been pain free for over a month. He was puzzled and put me through a battery of range-of-motion exercises, which I accomplished with ease. He folded his arms, shook his head and said, “At this time I can no longer recommend surgery.” It has now been almost 5 years and although my biceps and right rotator cuff are still torn (remember what I asked for: to take the pain away!), I have had no pain. If you ask my surgeon – himself a believer – he will tell you this can only be explained by the hand of God.

I have now been walking with the Lord for two decades and have had the honor and the privilege to both witness and be on both sides of several miraculous healings; some of them more dramatic than the two I have shared. Of all the lines of evidence pointing to the existence of God, the most powerful of all is the most personal of all: experiential evidence. I will close with a quick observation:  I have noticed that there is almost a direct correlation between how closely one walks with the Lord and how much one loves Him. I invite you to put my observation to the test!

Maranatha!

Joe