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This weekend presented two strong reinforcements (one solemn, the other not so) for me that God does indeed exist.  The first involved a revelation by former President Jimmy Carter, the other occurred with the NFL playoffs.

On Saturday I happened upon a townhall meeting televised on CSPAN from a weekend devoted to the Carter presidency at The University of Georgia.  The culmination of the meeting was the promised delivery from President Carter of an unknown story that had a significant impact on his time in office.  While I’ve never been a Carter fan (and his recent book which I have not read, though the excerpts I’ve seen strongly support my reasons for not liking him),  I was moved by the revelation he provided to the audience.

According to Carter the negotiations at Camp David between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had not been going well.  On the seventh day of what would turn out to be a 13 day period, Carter was informed by staff that Sadat had requested a helicopter to ferry him back to Washington so that he could return to Cairo.  Carter took the news hard.  Not only would all of the work he put into this summit be for naught, but Sadat and Carter were personally close (so much so that their families were on a friendly basis) and his friend had not had the decency to inform him personally of this decision.

In the telling of his story, Carter offered some background and went to great lengths to describe the way that he, Sadat and Begin were attired during the summit.  Carter had dressed casually choosing sport shirts and jeans while Sadat wore (that scourge of the 1970’s) leisure suits and Begin favored professional dress in the form of suit and tie.

Upon learning of Sadat’s plans, Carter said that he went to his quarters and changed into a suit and tie and then did the only thing he could do - he went to the chapel to pray.  He said he got on his knees and asked God to help.  At this point in the story, Carter became visibly choked up.  The emotion of not only how important this moment was to his presidency, but also how committed he is in his faith that he felt it necessary to explain how he had changed his clothes to better honor God in the chapel washed the entire audience with emotion.  This was something they were not expecting to hear. 

Carter regained his composure and continued with the story. 

Carter said he left the chapel and went to see Sadat. He informed the Egyptian president that should he follow through with his plans to depart, not only would the peace process be doomed, but that their friendship would be dissolved.

The rest of the story is well-known history.  Sadat stayed and the Camp David Accords were the product of that endeavor.  I believe - along with Jimmy Carter - that God had something to do with it.

On a lighter note, the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning are going to the Super Bowl.  There’s probably not a player more deserving for a Super Bowl bid than Manning. 

Just as importantly though the devil (Bill Belichick) lost.  Anybody who lives in Cleveland, or St. Louis, or Carolina, or San Diego, or… well you get the idea.

Amen, there is a God.