On Faith - by Crucible

The nature of faith is an interesting debate, as most times the argument falls back to the authenticity of the materials used to build it. As a Christian, my source is the Bible. Those who practice other religions or spiritual principles have their own. What is faith? By biblical standard, it is the absolute belief in the things hoped for, as if they were already real. To extend that by my own understanding: faith is not a denial of reality, but a strong belief in overturning it. Scientifically, there is solid ground for this too. The more we believe in a given outcome, the higher the probability of it coming to fruition. Starting a business requires faith. Starting a family requires faith. People would rather doubt the scriptural proof of faith, because it sounds too impossible, too much like fantasy, than actually take the lesson and meaning from it. You hear the debates: it's impossible to cross the Red Sea, impossible for the sun to stand still for a day, impossible for a blind man to suddenly find his way to healing. All the while, the message gets ignored. The message is simple. A wholesome trust in God is bound to create unexpected outcomes. The Red Sea story is about reaching a dead end in the middle of liberation. The Israelites had pursuers behind them and a sea in front of them. They were caught between death and death; turning back meant bondage, going forward meant drowning. Their faith in God did not fail, because he made a way where there wasn't one. Paul writes to the Corinthians that God will always make a way for us when a situation tries to overwhelm us. That's not just comfort, that's a receipt. That's proof. Joshua was in a heated battle and needed light to see it through. He knew, fully well, that the battle would be lost the moment the sun went down. So he had faith, and he prayed, and the sun stood still. And Saul, before he became Paul, was a destiny child that God needed to make see by first making him blind. It is hard to have faith when your eyes are locked on the situation in front of you. On his way to persecute Christians, God struck him blind and led him instead to the very people he had been hunting. That teaches temperance, and obedience. Had he rejected God's direction and tried to force his way through on his own understanding, he likely would have remained blind. Instead, he had faith. There is a constant need for the help of the Holy Spirit, because we live in times where people apply rational argument to areas that were never meant to be settled by logic alone. Why do you have faith in the first place? Is it to support a well thought out logic, or because you believe that within the boundaries of your own power, a thing isn't possible? I am building my faith too, so sometimes I shake, but I don't let that shake carry me to the point of no return. The Bible says a righteous man falls seven times and rises again, and that number was never really the point, since you can fall more than seven times. The core meaning is: don't give up. Have faith, because without faith, hope is meaningless. Why hope for the future if you are faithless? The current reality has a way of distorting the truth. Have you ever wondered why, when we want something, a new job, a house, a change in salary, we instinctively believe it might not happen? That's how we've been programmed by disappointment. We tell ourselves it's safer not to over-expect, not to have too much faith, so we don't fall short. But we forget that a child, when born, wholeheartedly believes their parent will provide for them. That child has faith they will do amazing things. Talk to a bright-minded child and you'll see it: the world isn't restricted by our own logic. They live in a more expansive universe.

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