Did you ever have one growing up? An invisible friend who no one else could see but you. You’d set a place at the table for him/her/it! There would be conversations in your room and tea parties with your special friend. Did you parents ever go along with it?
Some people I’ve talked with as an adult struggle because Faith seems more like a childhood invisible friend than anything of real substance. When it’s your faith in question, it feels like you’re the only one who can see it sometimes. When you’re on the outside looking in at someone else of faith – it can sometimes appear as if people are having conversations with someone and making decisions that you might just “go along with” because you don’t really understand it.
I read this article recently about this concept that “Faith has it’s Reasons”. It’s written by a man named R.C. Sproul. To be honest, I don’t read very much of his work, but I’ve heard of him within the reformed church circles as a leader of the faith. As always, with any article I reference, I encourage you to read it for yourself.
One quote stood out to me above all else.
“Faith never requires us to crucify our minds or deny our senses. It’s not virtuous to take a “leap of faith” if that means we plunge into irrationality. The Bible never calls us to leap into the darkness but to leap out of the darkness into the light.”
I really LOVE THIS.
I spend a great deal of time with people who struggle with faith because they see Faith as an invisible friend, a childhood apparition of someone who is not thinking logically. I have never felt this way about my faith personally. I’ve always allowed faith to build on what I’ve seen into what I cannot see – not BLIND steps that cannot be explained. To take me from what I do know into what is still unknown, not SACRIFICE the knowledge God has given me for some other form of reason.
I don’t share with people things I’ve “read out of a book” like it’s the Night Before Christmas and I want everyone to really, really believe in Santa Clause. Very similar to Peter and John, I share primarily from my faith experience what I’ve seen, heard, sense, and feel. My intellect and senses are highly aware of what I believe God is doing all around me.
On those rare occasion that steps of faith “appear” to be illogical or irrational, there will always be a REAL PEACE that exists in those moments if they are truly instructions from God. God doesn’t go against our senses or try to bypass the body HE CREATED YOU WITH. He will let you SEE, HEAR, FEEL, SMELL, and sometimes even TASTE what He’s up to in your life because faith into what is unseen LAUNCHES from what is seen!
So how about you? Is faith something that builds from the known into the unknown? OR do you have an invisible friend who’s asking you to do things that no one understands?
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