Will you dare to trust Him?

"Now don't push the term faith on me," a friend of my wife's told me bluntly at a dinner party.
"The word is like a red flag."

"Why such a violent reation?" I inquired.

"Well, because I object to the way people use faith as a theological gimmick to duck all rational problems. At every point where a man wants to understand, they say, 'You just have to have faith,' or, 'Reason only goes so far.' I resent it! I see nothing wrong with 'Prove to me first, then I'll believe."

As we talked, I realized that it had never occurred to this intelligent, well-educated man that in his everyday life he often follows the reverse order. Belief and acceptance first, then action. Every day he lives, he acts on faith many times with little proof or none at all, and he does not feel that he is being impractical.

He demonstrates an act of faith each time he boards a plane. He believes that it will take him to his destination, but he has no proof of it. he entrusts life itself to several unknown mechanics who have serviced the plane, as well as to a pilot about whom he knows nothing.

Each time he eats a meal in a resturant he trusts some unknown cook behind the scenes and eats the food on faith, faith that it is not contaminated. He enters a hospital for an operation and signs a release giving permission for surgery. This is an act of faith in an anesthetist whose name he may never know and a surgeon who holds in his hands the power of life and death.

Even sitting in a chair is an act of faith. Surely he doesn't test every chair of its sturdiness before he sits down. He just sits on the chair having faith it will support him.

He accepts a prescription from a doctor and takes it to a druggist, thus activating his faith that the pharmacist will fill the prescription accurately. The use of the wrong drug might be deadly, but he is not equipped to analyze the contents before swallowing the pill.

It is obvious that if we insisted on the "proof first, thwn faith" order in our daily lives, organized life as we know it would gring to a screeching halt. And since life together among people is possible only by faith, as we act out trust in others, it should not seem odd that the same law applies to our life with God.

In the spiritual realm, when for some reason or other we refuse to act by faith, all activity stops just as completely as it does nin the secular realm, There is no way for us even to take the first steps toward the spiritual life except by faith, any more than a baby can get launched on his earthly life without blind trust in his parents and other adults. We accept the fact of a personal relationship with God by faith, even as our young children accept the fact of parental love.

Trusting in Him who can go with me and remain in you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.
-Abraham Lincoln