Blind Faith?

The farther I go on this healing journey with Jettie, the more I am convinced that I know nothing! It is said that Augustine as he lay dying was granted a vision of heaven before he fully departed and that as his eyes were fully opened to God's reality he exclaimed something to the effect that "all my works are as straw." That's sort of how I feel these days, and it's a good feeling not to have confidence in oneself, believe me, although it is also unsettling to say the least! I am not sure why it is so, but it seems much easier to trust in the unreliable perceptions I have of things than the certainty of Father's declarations, but I have discovered that He is faithful to pursue me with His love and truth until I trust Him a little more.

So...I have been drawn once again to ponder what it means to trust God, to "have faith in God." And since I don't know anything I want to share a couple of remarkable thoughts from others who have been forged in God's furnace enough to have something to say about faith.

My basic premise for this blog entry, as the title suggests, is that there is no such thing as blind faith for a believer. I have written about this earlier (January of this year, I think), but I ran across a couple of remarkable thoughts about faith being rooted in a greater reality (and therefore not blind) that I want to share with you.

First, J.P. Moreland and Klaus Issler write about a reality that is so compelling that "not believing" seems foolish. Ponder their words from In Search of a Confident Faith, pp. 22-23.

"Merely exhorting people to be more committed to God--'just have more faith'--seldom produces greater confidence and dedicated trust in God. Rather, what is needed is a realistic picture of a flourishing life lived deeply in tune with God's kingdom--a life that is so utterly compelling that failure to exercise greater commitment to life in that kingdom will feel like a foolish, tragic missed opportunity for entering into something truly dramatic and desirable."

What I hear in these words, among other things, is that trusting God is not something we have to do blindly, but rather the compelling example of others before us and around us who live "flourishing lives lived deeply in tune with God's Kingdom" helps us to "see." Can you think of those who have lived before you and who are now around you who enable you to see? Just wondering...

The second statement that negates the idea of "blind faith" is from one of those people who has gone before us and who lived the compelling life of faith. His name is F.F. Bosworth, and he was a remarkable man of faith whose life and ministry of evangelism was marked by the miraculous. I was captured just this morning by his beautiful picture of what it means to walk by faith, not by sight (and yet, as you will see, he doesn't think of faith as blind but as seeing beyond the current world!). In Christ The Healer, he writes, "The great spiritual realities and facts that God sees and tells us about are just as real as though we could see them with natural eyes. Because of God, His faithfulness, and His promises, faith is the surest ground possible to stand on. To the man who is not enlightened or who does not see the promise of God, it is stepping out into space. To those who who have faith in God's Word, it is walking on the foundations of the universe." (italics mine).

I have nothing more to add this week. I know nothing, nothing, nothing! :-) But I am content to rest on what I am learning and am asking God to enable me more and more to walk on the "foundations of the universe."

Walking but not blindly,

Tom, one of Abba's children