Take your name and parents for instance, are you really
certain your name is what you have been brought up to believe? Could it have been different on your birth
certificate? How can you scientifically prove your
birth certificate is accurate? Could
it’s authors have been lying about certain facts? Was the hospital notary in on the
deception? Could you truly be the
product of another entire set of parents but simply taken at birth? You were too young to know, so how do you
scientifically prove something that happened before your cognitive memory? Ah yes, the good old DNA test, we can get one
of those now and clear all this up (at least we know we were not stolen at
birth). But DNA does not verify the
truth of the documentation associated with your birth. With some work at it, we could round up
witnesses, get copies of corroborating documentation, talk to the doctor who
delivered us, etc.. At some point we
would have enough support to believe the truth we know, but it would take work,
and in some rare cases may never be proven scientifically. Is it any less true, without the science to
support it?
If you use the name you have been brought up to believe is
yours, if you answer to it, if others know you by it, then it is a truth, even
if it conflicts with paper signed long ago.
At some point each person chooses to be known by the name they validate,
if they are not happy with the one they have, they change it. The point here is that some truth is simple
enough to believe in, without a ton of scientific data to back it up. That presumption
of truth, is called faith.
In order to have faith, you have to trust the person(s) you put your
faith in. It does you little good to put
your faith in something random, unknown, or unfamiliar. You may ‘bet’ on someone else’s good nature,
but that can hardly be called having ‘faith’ in them. Faith and trust then are in separable. And with faith, you may be able to believe in
the truth of something without all the science behind it, and sometimes even
when what you look at, tells a different story.
Most people who support evolution as the basis of our
origin, believe Christians to be using a ‘weak’ argument whenever they rely on
‘faith’ in the absence of scientific fact.
Yet the ‘science’ of evolution requires a great
deal of ‘faith’ as it cannot answer many pertinent questions
either. When science lacks the answers,
it is rationalized as ‘undiscovered’.
But when a question regarding God comes up, any response of ‘faith’ is
deemed as naïve blind obedience. I
suppose the reason for this is a fundamental lack of trust in who our God
really is, and what He is all about.
Consider for a moment what we believe about our God; that He is good,
and that He wants only good for us; and that we are free to choose for
ourselves. Given this, we are not
slaves, because we choose to serve Him.
This is not forced labor, it is labor based in love. Given God’s intentions for us, we can trust
in Him, to ALWAYS look out for our best interests (even if they conflict with our
own wisdom).
I love the example of Abraham in scripture who is touted as
having great faith to leave the land of his father, for a land he had never
seen, based solely on a promise from God.
I love how at age 100 he finally has the son he was promised by God to
populate the earth like the sands of the seas.
But most of all I admire the relationship Abraham had with Christ, that
he was so close to Jesus, they actually talked to each other. Abraham knew it was God, when God told him to
take Isaac to sacrifice him. Think about
this for a second. God was telling
Abraham to commit first degree murder of his only son, as a sacrifice to
Him. At the time ONLY pagan / heathen
gods demanded such child sacrifice, and these rituals were always STRONGLY
condemned by God. Yet here He is, asking
for the same thing. I would have freaked
out, and refused to accept this was really God talking, sounds way more like
Satan to me than God. But Abraham knew
the voice of God first hand, had followed it all his life, and did so again,
hoping against hope God would withdraw his request. Not until the angel stopped Abraham from
actually committing murder, did God stop this ‘test’ of his faith.
We have such a hard time believing that God will follow
through on His promises to us. And so we
‘help’ God by taking care of ourselves financially instead of sharing our money
back with him. We protect ourselves from
the world, by keeping away from homeless crazy people who need us, but might
hurt us while we sleep. We avoid dangerous
places like prisons, soup-kitchens, shelters, hospitals, and nursing homes for
fear of our own mortality. And we think
we follow God in faith. How much ‘faith’
does living this way really require? Is
that why we don’t give our faith a good work-out like we do our bodies? We play it safe all the time, risk little or
nothing, and learn to trust little at all.
We couch our prayers for the sick in weak words like “but
let it be according to Your will” as if it would ever be God’s will for someone
to suffer or die. We suffer and die from
our own choices, and from the effects of evil on others. Why
not pray boldly for healing instead of just comforting the loved
ones? Is it because we don’t want to
give ‘false’ hope to the sick; with our weak faith perhaps the hope would be
false. I say instead we boldly ask God
for the miracles He wants to pour out on us.
Stop hiding behind weak words, and ask God for what we really want. Let Him say no, if He does not want to grant
our request, but let us make the request in faith with power. In faith that KNOWS God wants to pour out His
healing upon us so we don’t even have room to receive it.
This kind of faith takes trust. It’s risky to call out for God to help and
put the attention on Him to see if He does.
Faith then is not the last resort of those who lack
scientific proof of their beliefs; rather it is the first thing we look to in
any situation we face. We rely on our
faith to bridge the gaps in our knowledge, not because we have NO knowledge of
God, simply because we may not yet have a complete knowledge of God. We add faith to our reason, and to our
personal experience with God, and in so doing, faith grows. As we witness the results of trusting God, we
constantly prove His care and goodness in our lives. Once you begin to KNOW what God does in your
life, your faith starts a fire inside you, that no man, and no evil can ever
put out. This becomes yet another avenue
of a life altering experience. Our
discovery of God and His true character and intentions makes us stronger still. Our incredible weakness and unworthiness,
covered in a blanket of love that changes the core of who we are.
Of course this kind of faith is not something to play with
kids. Once you get infected with trust
like this, and see results like this, you
will catch fire like you can’t imagine. You will not be able to shut off the spickett
once that channel gets opened up in your life.
Once this gift of faith God puts in your heart starts to bare harvest,
watch out. You may just single-handedly
change the world, not you per se, but God working in you and through you…
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