How far reaching are God's powers?

[HappySkeptic]

That's admirable.  But it doesn't answer the question.  Entertain it as a hypothesis, let's assume that you're wrong for the moment -- what are you doing in your life that would eventually lead to you discovering that fact?

...

To answer the rest of this, the Lord would have to forsake me. He would have to abandon me in some way I couldn't possibly explain. Give me cancer, for instance, or put me through some terrible and debilitating accident. Short of taking my life or giving me over to sin, those are the only options (well, that may not be true. There can be terrible spiritual consequences as well that I won't get into here). So far, the Lord hasn't forsaken me in any way that I can make that conclusion with any certainty. I've suffered, but my suffering has been deserved and needed, and the damage not permanent, so far as I can tell anyway.

The idea that God deals out bad things for sins, either as punishment or for instruction, is depressingly common, but theologically and scientifically unsound.

I can guarantee that you will die, and it is more likely to be a prolonged illness than dying instantly in your sleep.  You may get cancer, or dementia, or a series of strokes.  Your personhood may get slowly stripped from you.

I can also guarantee that some bad things will happen to you and those you love.

When you can show that those with your particular belief are protected from these things, you will have evidence that can show the world you are right!  Too bad no sects of any religion have been able to show that.  It is almost like God doesn't want evidence of his actions to be found out, by not actually doing them in a way that can be statistically measured.  So, if he does good for some people, he must do bad in equal number to others to average it out.

I had a nephew die of cancer.  I was a universalist Christian, though not exactly like you.  I truly believed.  I prayed.  I would've given my life for that boy.  He was 5 when he got stage 4 cancer, and was special needs.  He didn't have a sin in the freak'n world.  He had a genetic error that when it causes cancer, causes death 100% of the time.  Not a single child has survived.  He survived a year with aggressive treatment, which was a world record.

Rather than blame God, I came to realize that the universe simply plays out according to rules.  If a DNA sequence says "cancer", then cancer will happen.  It is a biochemical certainty.  It would take a miracle to not create the cancer.  It doesn't take an act of God to create it.

So I say again -- your hypothesis about how God works is testable.  It requires a God diddling with quantum mechanics, chemistry, physics, or whatever.  It requires measurable differences in outcomes for believers in your sect vs. those who believe in Vishnu or are atheists.

I'm hope tragedies don't happen to you or those you love, but whether they do or don't, it proves nothing.