Biblical faith means you believe in something promised – even when you don’t yet see the evidence. But sometimes faith sometimes means NOT believing what you see – even when you see it. Yes, I know how the infamous Bible verse goes:
1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
(Hebrews 11:1 NLT)
And it IS sometimes very hard to believe something that you don’t yet see. Maybe it’s hard for you to believe that your financial situation is going to get better when you don’t see any money in the bank or that your relationship with a spouse or child is improving – even when the evidence you see is to the contrary…
But sometimes it is equally hard to believe that something is NOT what you see. That involves faith, too. Let me explain…
Many years ago, my grandfather, who ran the community grocery store in a small but growing town, was cleaning the public restroom of his business. As he labored in the small, dimly lit room, he noticed what looked like a whiskey bottle in the window sill, that was evidently left by a customer who did a little more than relieve himself when he used the facilities.
My grandfather, a very devout man and known city-wide as an itinerant preacher and the chairman of the deacons at the local baptist church, held the whiskey bottle to the light in order to see the label and see if it smelled as he suspected.
At that precise moment, the bathroom door opened and a man who knew my grandfather very well walked in. Both men were startled, and my grandfather’s friend exclaimed “Why, Henry, if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I would have never believed it to be so.”
“Wait, you don’t understand,” my grandfather pleaded…
“Nope,” said his friend, “I would not have believed it unless I had seen it with my own two eyes.”
And so his friend could not be convinced that his eyes had betrayed him and he left believing that he had caught the chairman of the deacons of the local baptist church with a bottle of spirits.
Now whether you believe it is okay or not to drink…that’s beside the point. The point IS that sometimes what we see…or what we THINK we see is not reality.
Sometimes real faith involves NOT trusting our five senses, but believing our one Savior and the work he has done, is still doing, and will do in our lives and the lives of those we love.
