This I Know; For God Is for Me

“This I Know; For God Is for Me” is both a biblical declaration and a practical posture of faith: the believer does not merely assume that God is favorable, but cries out, acts, speaks, and persists on that basis. In the book, the phrase becomes a compact answer to fear and harassment, a lens through which deliverance is recognized, and a summons to treat prayer and faith-filled speech as active instruments rather than passive sentiments.

Biblical Foundation and Meaning

The expression is introduced through Psalm 56, where trust in God is set against fear of what human beings can do. The surrounding teaching emphasizes that the believer's cry to the Lord causes enemies to turn back and establishes confidence that God is fighting on the believer's behalf. Prayer is therefore presented as more than private consolation: the audible call to God is described as a weapon against demonic opposition, while Satan is said to seek distraction precisely because persistent prayer threatens his influence.

The phrase also gathers force from the book's recurring interpretation of divine apparent absence. God may seem silent, delayed, or determined to be left alone, yet the prescribed response is not withdrawal. A Christian who has failed in prayer is urged not to hide in embarrassment or assume that God is angry, but to return to Him and continue asking. In this framework, “This I Know; For God Is for Me” counters both unbelief and shame: the believer's confidence rests on God's character and willingness to deliver, not on an uninterrupted record of personal success.

The Interstate Testimony

The declaration receives its most immediate narrative embodiment in a late-night interstate emergency. After leaving church and taking a guest speaker to the airport, Hank Kunneman was driving home while worshiping God when he saw a car with its flashers stopped in the middle of the highway and a man lying on the road. The victim had been struck while attempting to cross the interstate in the dark; the impact was so severe that part of his hair remained in the car's grille.

Hank Kunneman braked, pulled over, and approached the scene. A marine agreed to guide traffic while Hank attended to the distressed driver, who was crying and hunched over the bleeding victim. The episode is recalled as a situation in which his established daily relationship with God became decisive because there was no opportunity to depend on preparation, explanation, or ordinary control. The testimony presents prior pursuit of God as a stored relationship that becomes available under sudden pressure.

The interstate account functions as an embodied version of the declaration. Faced with a violent and chaotic scene, Hank does not retreat into abstraction; he stops, acts, and helps. The phrase therefore includes practical courage as well as verbal assurance. Its meaning is tested where danger is immediate and another person's suffering demands action.

The Youth-Camp Deliverance

The same words later become a direct revelation during a church youth-camp confrontation. Hank Kunneman was serving as a youth pastor during an overnight gathering for boys when the group went outside to play capture the flag. An uneasy warning from the Holy Spirit led him to tell the other youth leaders to end the game and bring the children inside. As they were doing so, a car approached with a heavy bass beat, followed by a gang confrontation on the church campus.

The threat intensified when a man moved toward Hank. He became unable to speak and feared that the group could kill him. With no time to reason through a plan, he put on a stern expression, glared at the man, and thrust up a pointing finger. The man and the others suddenly backed away in shock, then ran toward their cars. Their haste produced several fender benders in the parking lot, and they were nearly gone by the time the off-duty police officer returned.

Hank Kunneman does not claim to know exactly what the attackers saw or heard, but he interprets the result as divine deliverance. The crucial detail is his uncertainty: he did not feel confident, yet he acted on what he understood as the authority of the Spirit. “This I Know; For God Is for Me” thus does not describe the absence of fear. It describes a decision to act despite fear, with the conviction that God's power can operate through an imperfect and improvised gesture.

The account is connected to Moses pointing his rod toward the Red Sea. As Moses had to act upon God's power rather than merely believe in deliverance, Hank's raised finger becomes a contemporary analogue to the rod of authority. The testimony further suggests that angels may have been involved, recalling the angelic protection placed between Pharaoh's forces and the Israelites. Psalm 34 is used to reinforce the image of the Lord's angel encamping around those who fear God and delivering them.

Speech, Prayer, and Authority

The declaration is closely tied to the book's treatment of words as actions. Moses's intercession after the Golden Calf is presented as an instance in which a human being stood before God and refused to accept destruction as the final answer. Moses appealed to God's agreement with the Israelites and urged Him to turn from fierce wrath. In the book's interpretation, God was looking for someone who would not leave Him alone; Moses's words altered the course of the crisis.

The same pattern appears in the angel's challenge to Zerubbabel: “Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.” The mountain is not treated as an immutable fact but as an obstacle that can be addressed with a victorious attitude and authoritative speech. “This I Know; For God Is for Me” supplies the inward certainty behind that outward command. The believer speaks to the mountain because the obstacle does not possess the final authority.

Elijah provides the clearest example of prophetic speech functioning as an event-producing declaration. He announced that there would be neither dew nor rain for years “according to my word.” The book interprets this as evidence that words, when spoken in confidence before God, can affect the course of nature. A modern testimony follows: while ministering at an overseas conference during a severe drought, Hank prophesied that rain would come within twenty-four hours as a sign of blessing and answered prayer, with thunder marking God's voice in the heavens.

The immediate aftermath appeared to contradict the prophecy. There was no rain forecast, hours passed without visible change, and the next day's sun seemed to intensify the embarrassment of the spoken word. Later that afternoon, however, clouds formed, heavy rain began, thunder shook the buildings, and flooding covered the streets. The story concludes by applying the event to readers through the biblical assertion that a declared thing will be established. In this usage, the phrase is not merely a description of God's attitude toward the believer; it authorizes a confident response to circumstances that appear to deny the promise.

Persistence and Deliverance

The book places the declaration within a larger discipline of importunity. Jesus' teaching in Luke 11 is explained as an attitude of shameless, bold, determined, pressing, and persistent requesting, while Luke 18 is invoked as a command to pray without fainting. The believer is expected to continue pressing in prayer rather than interpreting delay as rejection. “I Will Not Take No for an Answer” becomes the behavioral counterpart to “This I Know; For God Is for Me.”

That persistence is also presented as a path to freedom. The stated principles of deliverance include refusing to leave God alone, using the Word of God and the name of Jesus, believing that the Lord wants freedom, standing one's ground, refusing to give up, and remaining in church with an anointed pastor. The promised consequence is that enemies turn back and the person becomes free. The phrase gathers these practices into a single conviction: deliverance is expected because God is faithful and wants to help.

The expression finally moves from testimony into invitation. Readers who have never known Jesus Christ personally are urged to begin an intimate relationship by spending quality time with Him every day and asking for His presence. The concluding prayer asks Jesus to enter the believer's heart, forgive sins, fill the person with the Holy Spirit, and draw that person closer. Its final commitment is to pursue God continually and not leave Him alone until blessing is received. In this closing form, “This I Know; For God Is for Me” becomes not only a remembered line from Psalm 56 but a public confession, a prayer posture, and a lifelong practice of trust.