“Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we
have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken
to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I
speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one
who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in
the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3: 11-15)
Jesus asks, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” When I read this, I heard him asking me how I can hope to do the really tough things in life if I can’t even master the easy ones. To me, even the easiest types of faith are hard to come by. I can’t even drive over a bridge without thinking the people who built it didn’t really know what they were doing after all, and any minute I’ll be plunged into the water below, and certain death. So how could I ever develop a faith in something as abstract and endlessly complex as God?
Faith, to me, is belief, in the absence of direct evidence. If I never had it for a bridge, then what hope is there for a faith in God? The answer is in a word almost as powerful as ‘faith.’ In a word as simple as any, yet as deeply meaningful as a book of 10,000. For over 45 years of my life, I was as inaccessible to faith as the greatest doubter. Through my logic and fear, I had rendered ‘faith’ nothing more than a fantastical idea. But this one word was the key that changed it all. It was not only the path to faith, but also the keystone to its strength. The word was ‘choice.’ For it was in the realization that faith is a choice I make or don’t make, every day, that I realized that no evidence or lack thereof could ever take away a strength I found in someone greater than myself if I chose otherwise. There are some things we can never know for sure. We can never break them down, piece by piece, and analyze their constituent parts to see how they make up the whole.
So the decision to believe or not to believe in them comes down to choice. God is either everything or nothing, and the answer to which He is lies in our choice. The only question which remains is ‘What do I choose to believe?’ This question puts all challenges of faith on equal footing, from the earthly to the heavenly. It puts all tasks on equal footing as well, from the easy to the hard. And I have the freedom, every day, to answer either way. To make my life one of endless, meaningless struggle, or one of fulfillment and purpose. Today, and hopefully always, I choose to believe.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
Jeff Edwards
Jesus asks, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” When I read this, I heard him asking me how I can hope to do the really tough things in life if I can’t even master the easy ones. To me, even the easiest types of faith are hard to come by. I can’t even drive over a bridge without thinking the people who built it didn’t really know what they were doing after all, and any minute I’ll be plunged into the water below, and certain death. So how could I ever develop a faith in something as abstract and endlessly complex as God?
Faith, to me, is belief, in the absence of direct evidence. If I never had it for a bridge, then what hope is there for a faith in God? The answer is in a word almost as powerful as ‘faith.’ In a word as simple as any, yet as deeply meaningful as a book of 10,000. For over 45 years of my life, I was as inaccessible to faith as the greatest doubter. Through my logic and fear, I had rendered ‘faith’ nothing more than a fantastical idea. But this one word was the key that changed it all. It was not only the path to faith, but also the keystone to its strength. The word was ‘choice.’ For it was in the realization that faith is a choice I make or don’t make, every day, that I realized that no evidence or lack thereof could ever take away a strength I found in someone greater than myself if I chose otherwise. There are some things we can never know for sure. We can never break them down, piece by piece, and analyze their constituent parts to see how they make up the whole.
So the decision to believe or not to believe in them comes down to choice. God is either everything or nothing, and the answer to which He is lies in our choice. The only question which remains is ‘What do I choose to believe?’ This question puts all challenges of faith on equal footing, from the earthly to the heavenly. It puts all tasks on equal footing as well, from the easy to the hard. And I have the freedom, every day, to answer either way. To make my life one of endless, meaningless struggle, or one of fulfillment and purpose. Today, and hopefully always, I choose to believe.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
Jeff Edwards
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