Faith That Believes Before it Sees
We live in a world of broken promises. So often people, corporations, and government tell us one thing, then either do something else or nothing at all. When someone says to you, “I will come to your picnic” it often really means “I will come to your picnic if nothing better comes up.” Marriages break up because “as long as we both shall live” means nothing more than “as long as it is convenient.” And unfortunately, in the broken world in which we live, the conditional statement of “if X, then Y” is not always true.
For many years, the accounting firm Arthur Andersen had as its slogan “Think straight, talk straight,” yet went out of business after their alleged complicity and subsequent obstruction of justice conviction in the Enron scandal. (To be fair, that conviction was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court a few years later.)
Presidential candidates have also been known to make campaign promises only to break them. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson, in a speech just two weeks before the presidential election, said, “We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” Then, six months later, during his presidency, he sent U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. In 1988, George H. W. Bush promised, “Read my lips: No new taxes,” only to sign a bill raising taxes during his first and only term.
Because of so many broken promises we live in a “seeing is believing” world. You’ve probably said it yourself, “I will believe it when I see it!” Sadly, from experience, many of us have become skeptical of much of what we hear or read. If we cannot see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or smell it, then we often have real doubts. Have you ever heard of Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, who is commonly referred to as Doubting Thomas? Thomas was not willing to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead until he could see the nail marks and put his fingers into Jesus’ side (John 20:24-28).
We have become a society of Doubting Thomases. However, God tells us something totally different than seeing is believing. He calls us to a place of faith; a faith not dependent upon our circumstances (what we currently see). 2 Corinthians 5:7 says this – “We live by faith, not by sight.” Faith is about being confident in what we cannot currently see. In Hebrews 11:1 we read – “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
What God really is saying is that He wants us to believe in order to see. For most of us that really goes against our natural inclination of “I will believe it when I see it.” We cannot see God with our physical eyes (Colossians 1:15), but faith gives us assurance to believe that He exists (Romans 1:19-20), that He is a good (Psalm 107:1), and that He is faithful (Lamentations 3:22-23).
So, the takeaway for you (and for me) is that without faith that believes before it sees, when life gets rough, despair sets in if we only believe once we can see the outcome. Psalm 27:13 tells us – “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” And then verse 14 gives us this challenge – “Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.”
I will end with what Jesus told Doubting Thomas after he (Thomas) touched Jesus and finally believed that Jesus was raised from the dead. In John 20:29 we read this – “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet still have believed.’”
God please grant us all a faith that believes before it sees! Amen
[The painting in this post is by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, titled “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas”.]
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