Dare to Trust God

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"Now don't push the term faith at me," a lawyer barked out during a court section recently. "The word is like a red flag. I resent it. I see nothing wrong with 'Prove it to me first, then I'll believe' ".

As the hearing went on, I realised that it had never occurred to this intelligent, well-educated man that in his everyday life he often follows the reverse order — belief and acceptance first, then action. Everyday he lives, he acts on faith many times many times with little proof or none at all, and he doesn't feel he is being impractical.

He domonstrates an act of faith each time he boards a plane.

Each time he eats a meal in a restaurant he trusts some unknown cook behind the scenes. He enters a hospital for an operation and signs a release giving permission for surgery. This is an act of faith in an anesthetist whose name he may not even know and a surgeon who holds in his hands the power of life and death.

He accepts a prescription from a doctor and takes it to a druggist, thus acting out his faith that the pharmacist will fill the prescription accurately. The use of the wrong drug might be deadly, but he isn't equipped to analyse the content before swallowing the pill.

It's obvious that if we were to insist on the " proof first, then faith" order in our daily lives, organized life as we know it would grind to a screeching halt. And since life together among men is possible only by faith, as we act out our trust in other people, it shouldn't seem odd that the same law applies to our life with God.

The New Testament makes it clear that in the spiritual realm, when for some reason or other we refuse to act by faith, all activity stops, just as completely as it does in the secular realm. There is no way for us even to take the first steps toward the Christian life except by faith, any more than a baby can get launched on his earthly life without blind baby-trust in his parents and other adults. We have to accept the fact of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by faith, even as our young children accept the fact of parental love. For the child, as for the new Christian, understanding and proof come later.

In the same way, every step of our Christian walk has to be by faith.

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Much of my own problem with faith arose from an early misunderstanding of what faith was. First of all, I used to believe that faith had something to do with feeling. For example, when I had messed up some situation and had asked God for forgiveness, then I would peer inside myself to see if I felt forgiven. If I could locate such feelings, then I was sure that God had heard and had forgiven me. Now I know that this is a false test of faith.

We wouldn't be so foolish as to go to a bus station, board the first bus we saw, then sit down and try to feel whether or not this was the bus that would take us where we wanted to go. Our feelings would obviously have no bearings on the facts. Yet I know now that at times, my actions in the spiritual realm have been just that foolish.

Another misconception I once had was that faith is trying to believe something one is fairly certain is not true. But faith is not hocus-pocus, opposed to knowledge and reality. In fact, faith doesn't go against experience at all; rather it appeals to experience, just as science does. The difference is that it appeals to experience in a realm where our five senses aren't supreme rulers.

Nor is faith a kind of spiritual coin which you and I can exchange for heaven's blessings. Nor is it simply believing doggedly in some particular doctrine. One can believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and feel no personal loyalty to him at all; that is, pay no attention whatsoever to his commandments and his will for one's life. One can believe intellectually in the efficacy of prayer and never do any praying.

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Perhaps one reason that the real meaning of faith eluded me personally for so long was that it is so surprisingly simple, so practical. Faith in God is simply trusting him enough to step out on that trust. 1 John 5:14 - 15 says,

Now the confidence we have in him is this, that he listens to us whenever we ask anything in accordance with his will; and if we know that he listens to whatever we ask, we know that we obtain the requests we have made to him.

Note how the thought goes in that promise. Whenever we ask God for something that is his will, he hears us. If he hears us, then he grants the request we have made. So you and I can rest on that promise.

The adventure of living hasn't really begun until we begin to stand on our faith-legs and claim — for ourselves, for our homes, for the upbringing of our children, for our health problems, for our business affairs, and for our world — the resources of our God.

If faith is not a work in life, then life is open territory.
And, usually, such an open invitation is welcomed by fear. And where fear lays seize to a life, faith is an unwelcomed stranger.

Faith is companion to all the ingredients that make for the best things in life — hope, love, joy, to name a few. Fear is stranger to all of these.

Faith keeps its options open for a blighter tomorrow.
Fear slams the door on tomorrow, by accepting today as the best.

C. Neil Strait

Have a great weekend!

STEEMBULLS