Faith

 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

          Lots of people (including me) struggle with faith, yet we practice on a daily basis. Some program we’ve watched for years comes on at a specific time on a specific day. We turn the TV on in anticipation, and our faith is nearly always rewarded. There’s the show. We pick up a book by a specific author, expecting the author to tell a story we’ll enjoy reading and maybe learn something from, and we’re disappointed if the author fails. We put heat under a pot of water, believing it will boil, and champing at the bit if it doesn’t boil fast enough, because of course, it must boil. We go to a restaurant at a specific time because someone has promised to meet us there. We make meals and put food out for our pets and wildlife in our area with full faith that it is not going to kill us or them.

          What is the basis of our faith in these situations? “Well, it’s always happened before” or “It’s happened before more often than not.” This is the first reason we should trust God. There is evidence in our lives, or in the lives of others that God can and does act on our behalf – not always with the answer we want, but somehow, things have worked out.

          A second reason we can have faith is that we need. When I see my dog’s bowl empty, I fill it. When she tells me that her bowl is empty, I fill it. When she tells me she wants to go out, I generally take her. At the same time, there are time when she tells me she wants something that I don’t give it to her – I don’t take her for a walk because I know the person she wants to visit isn’t home. I make her go inside because I’m going to be absent and don’t want her to be stolen or harmed. She has a need for safety that I understand, but she doesn’t. It is her need that causes me to act.

          A third reason the author of the book The Christian in Complete Armour gives for our having faith is because God desires it of us and for us. At first glance, this desire might seem like petty arrogance. God wants us to trust Him so He feels important. But consider for a moment. Good parents do not spend all of their time with their children. They don’t hold the child constantly or feed it constantly. They take care of the child not so that it can continue to be as needy as a newborn for all its life, but so that it can grow to be a productive member of the household and society. There are times they withhold a desired item in order to teach a desired lesson. There are times they impose their will, demand to be obeyed, not to bolster their egos, but to help the child.

          And when good parents insist on being treated as the parent or authority in a situation, it is not to reduce the child to a nothing, but to recognize that is the reality in the situation. The child is the one who lacks, not the parent. Of course, it is true that not all parents act in this way. We know of times and situations in which the parents are the needy ones, and we have a spiritual example of that as well, both in ourselves and in the devil.

          The point remains that we can have faith, and should have faith because God has answered before, because we are His children, and because He is God. These three make faith a rational choice.