Perhaps this story is not really about proof of the presence of YHWH at all. Perhaps it is about the fears and dangers of freedom, the terror of leadership of people who cannot and will not trust you as a leader, the ongoing doubts about whether God is with us at all. I refuse to wait for the next unexplainable event to offer me rock-solid proof of the presence of God. One person's "miracle" is another's plain event. The tortilla chip is just that, a chip; the healing was the result of good medical care and a body acting well under extreme circumstances; the church grew to vast size because the pastors were charismatic, the location was prime, the energy was high.
Yet, are not each of these, when viewed through the lens of God, divine events, too? Yes, even the delicious tortilla chip, a wonderful combination of corn and salt, and other things to be the perfect vehicle for that lovely queso. Waiting for water to pour from a rock in a desert without water is a sort of atheism, is it not? Without such proofs, I simply will not believe. Hence, I place my trust not in God but in unexplainable acts that may or may not have divine origin. My faith is in God, and as Paul has it, whether we live or whether we die, we are God's.
In short, I believe that YHWH is with us, but that belief has precisely nothing to do with acts of magic. I believe that God is present, because I know that without that presence, I can finally do nothing of lasting value or significance for the justice of God's world. Period.
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