This is what people want, and God already made sure you'd have it. And that you could verify it any time you want, daily if you like.
Preliminary information prior to the proof:
Often people will say, "I need personal proof, I want God to show up in front of me and do something spectacular". Well, aren't there about 5 billion people on the planet? So God should do 5 billion spectacular things DAILY to prove himself to each and every one of us? Well, that would make God fairly common and almost a slave to his creation. This required personal daily proof, if given, would degrade the majesty of being the almighty God. Needless to say, God doesn't give daily personal spectacular shows.
Likewise if all the people of the world "as a whole" received DAILY proof, it would tend to become something like, "oh, yeah that's just God showing us he's here again". Therefore, it's expected that God, if he showed any proof at all, would only show proof on the grandest of scales and it would be a rare occurrence.
Of course, infrequent grand scale proof would then require no daily common appearances. This brings up the "hidden" aspect of God. If you saw him daily yet got infrequent grand scale proof, you'd still end up losing the "almighty God" perspective. Therefore God remains hidden.
So what type of proof should God show that would guarantee he did it and no one else? Obviously God would pick the type of proof, and he has. His method has been to predict history before it happens. Not just prior to an event, but often thousands of years in advance. God knows this is something only he can do and no guessing in the world could ever match his predictions. Though one big requirement for prediction of history is that the predictions would have to be recorded and passed down through generations. And the success of the past predictions matching history would tend to give validity to watching for the remaining future events. The recording and saving of predictions of future events is what God has decided to use as divine proof.
A big aspect of God's proof is that it has to follow his concept of "free will". You have free will to believe in God or not, and free will to do good or evil. Free will means you decide for yourself what you'll do and believe. Therefore, you will be deciding for yourself whether or not his proof convinces you of his existence. Granted, God's proof is "grand scale", but he'll still leave you room for a small sliver of doubt (free will to disbelieve). From this you most certainly will ask, "Well then how can I know 100% if it's right? Why not just drop all this and give me rock solid daily personal proof right now?". Simply, because it would then violate the prior definitions of how and what proof God will give within the bounds of retaining his stature as the almighty God.
One last aspect of God's proof is fairly obvious. Prediction includes both types of events: controlled and uncontrolled. God knows ahead of time, how we will act given free will and how HE will respond to our actions. In other words God and us are interacting throughout history, God and us have free will to affect history, but only God knows what will happen (therefore only God can predict future events).
OK, so if we're given proof but God remains hidden, then obviously God wants us to know he's there. Then why are we here and not with God to begin with? First off, we're here to be tested. One of the attributes of free will is that people can actually decide to "go against their creator" and many do! By pre-testing people, God can judge the good from the bad. By remaining hidden God can sort the ones who will forget him (uncaring and disrespectful) and those who will remember him. By instilling free will to believe the proof of God, he can find the ones that will seek him and also be humble enough to accept him. Again, many people reject God and go against him. God is looking for the ones who will love him and remember him.
A quick summary so far:
* God's proof would affect whole
populations, not separate individuals.
* God's proof would occur very infrequently.
* Infrequent proof
would require God remain hidden.
* God has selected his proof as being prediction of
history.
*
God gave us free will to believe the proof or not.
* Both God and us affect history,
but only he can predict it.
* We're here to be tested, even the proof is part of the
test.
Now for the proof:
OK, so this proof is from God who remains hidden, is the proof hidden too? No, the proof is not hidden, but it is not well known. The proof is from God, yet it was recorded by prophets (men who gave credit to God for the predictions they wrote). Those prophets are associated with one particular nation, but not all people throughout the world bother to check what those prophets said. The reason for one nation, is simply that it would be used as the one to reference and the people of that nation would record and retain the predictions intact over centuries. The nation is small and that tends keep down the number of "errors" and lowers the amount of history to record. Amazingly just enough history to fit in one reasonably sized book. That book is called the Bible, and the nation is called Israel.
How do you know the proof is from God since men were recording it? By definition above, the proof came from God if it predicted "grand scale" events over centuries of time. Thus, it would affect a whole population and be completely obvious and verifiable through historical accounts and the present day situation. Another requirement is that God would specifically say, "this is proof from God".
OK, what is the proof that God exists? Here we go... A man named Ezekiel was being held captive with Jewish exiles in Babylon. Ezekiel was a prophet of God and initially not liked by the Jewish people. Anyway, Ezekiel predicted the destruction of Jerusalem which eventually occurred in 586 BC. From then on his prophetic writings were held in high regard by the Jewish people (they finally believed what he was saying). He wrote many other prophecies, one of which was Eze 37 in the bible. This prophecy shows that the Jewish people would be dispersed over the whole world and be beaten down to the point where they felt they would never be a nation again. Then God would join the lands of "old Judah" and "old Israel" into the present day land of Israel. That this final land of Israel would be one land in God's hand. Then that the Jewish people would return from over the whole world back to their own land, and God would make them one nation. The remainder of the passage deals with future events yet to come.
This prophecy has come to pass just as God said it would. The prophecy is marked by the characteristics of proof you'd expect from God (grand scale events). Simply put: the Jews being dispersed over the whole world, the land being joined from 2 separate nations, an approximate 1900 year time frame for the Jews to return to the land (Israel became a nation again in 1948), and the prophet Ezekiel giving credit to God.
But God didn't just stop there. In the 6th century BC, God further described this same historic procession to a prophet named Jeremiah (Jer 16:10-21 in the bible). Specifically God say's that because the Jew's have forgotten him and not kept his law, God would cast them out of the land into a land they knew not. That they would then be shown no favor from God. Further that people would no longer refer to the Jews as the ones taken out of Egypt by God, but instead would refer to the Jews as those who were returned to the land of their fathers from the land of the north and from all the lands where ever God had driven them.
God gives further predictions in Jeremiah:
Jer 16:19 "O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.
Jer 16:20 "Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?"
Jer 16:21 "Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD."
These last lines describe the non-Jews seeking Israel (God and Jesus his son). Though apparently many will worship false gods which sets them against God and thus they will know his wrath. This agrees with the "great tribulation" described by Jesus in the New Testament, and other prophets predictions of God's end time wrath.
Another easy to verify proof from God
In the bible, the section written by Isaiah contains a prophecy concerning a person who would tell them to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. This was odd at the time since both Jerusalem and the temple were still intact. Not only that, but the person's name was actually given by God in the verses.
In Isaiah 44:28 written 125 years BEFORE Cyrus king of Persia was born, is the initial verse saying that Cyrus would tell them to rebuild the temple and Jerusalem (they did this 190 years AFTER Isaiah wrote the prophecy). The Jews hadn't even been taken captive to Babylon before Isaiah wrote the prophecy and were still under Egyptian control.
From MS Encarta 1996 and the King James AV bible: Isaiah (a prophet of God) writes Isaiah 44:28 ......... ~725 BC Jerusalem and the temple are intact. Israel under Egyptian control ............... prior to 606 BC Israel under Babylonian control ........................ 606 BC Cyrus the Great is born (Persian empire) ............... 600 BC Israel under Persian control, captives set free ..... 537 BC Cyrus the Great of Persia tells them to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.
Here's what Isaiah wrote in 725 BC, before Cyrus was born:
Isa 44:28 "That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall
perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem,
Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy
foundations shall be laid.
Note that God tells Isaiah specific things only God could know 190 years BEFORE they happen:
* Cyrus is actually named, he was the one who freed them in 537 BC from the Babylonians. * Jerusalem is specifically said to be rebuilt. * The temple is specifically said to be rebuilt.
God talks of and to Cyrus the Great of Persia in the verses contained in Isaiah 44:28 to 45:13. Particularly God actually speaks directly to Cyrus in:
Isa 45:1 "Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have holden, to subdue
nations before him ...."
.
.
Isa 45:4 "For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect,
I have called thee by thy name; I have surnamed
thee, though thou hast not known me."
Isa 44:5 "I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is
no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou
hast not known me."
In those verses penned 190 years BEFORE, Isaiah wrote what God wanted to say to Cyrus, knowing that Cyrus would eventually read it, and when he'd read it.
Isaiah also wrote of Jesus in Isaiah 53, 750 years BEFORE Jesus showed up. The prophets of the bible say that they are writing what God wants written. They are not writing things they claim, but are giving the credit to God.
Another prophecy valid during our time:
In Zec 12:3 in the bible, God says Jerusalem would become a burdensome stone to all the nations. 3 major world religions hold Jerusalem as their capital. Right now the Palestinians may go to war over Jerusalem building on the remaining tract of land surrounding their hoped for capital. Israel has said that it will keep the city as it's capital and will hold the rights to it. Watch what happens.
ONLY God knew the whole world history BEFORE it happened.
There are quite a few other predictions made by the prophets of God in both the Old and New Testament. Enjoy.