Just Believe

So one morning as my daughter CiiCii and I were carpooling in to work together, I suddenly yelled, “Oh, No!” Since I was driving, CiiCii immediately looked from side to side and in front and back of us to see what was going on. Not seeing anything, she asked me what was wrong. I told her I didn’t see my purse and that meant I didn’t have any money, phones – (yes, I carry more than one) driver’s license, etc. with me. After a brief look around, CiiCii said, “Yes you do, it’s here.” The first question I asked was, “Where?” and proceeded to look around in the car…while all the time still driving in traffic. CiiCii said, “Mom, just keep your eyes on the road, I told you your purse is here.” I responded, “But I still don’t see it.” CiiCii’s next response just blew me away. She said, “Mom, I just told you the purse is here. You might not be able to see it but I see it. She further stated, “That’s exactly how we are with God sometime. He tells us things and because we can’t see it, we don’t believe.” She further stated, “Because you know I wouldn’t tell you it was here if it wasn’t, you should have just taken my word for it.”

Now, some of us go around quoting the cliché’ “God said it, I believe it and that settles it.” However, what I have notice is that a lot of people, including myself, find this quote easy to say but much harder to live out. Why? Because we can’t see the whole picture. WE can’t see the end from the beginning. WE have to see it to believe it when God is asking us to believe it until we see it!

In 2 Corinthians 5:7, the Bible tells us that we are to walk by faith, not by sight.” Now, even though it is so unnatural for us to walk without looking where we are going, that is precisely what this scripture tell us, as God’s people, we must do. When we “walk by sight” we depend on what we see, what we hear, or the emotional surges we feel. All of these can be misleading. How many times have you thought you saw something that really wasn’t there? Or how many times have you heard someone say something and thought it was meant one way only to find it wasn’t meant that way at all? Just having the ability to hear or see doesn’t guarantee an accurate reception of a message. Sometime it has more to do with our perception and not the reality of the thing. One thing that really makes walking by faith so difficult is that what we already believe, see and feel about a thing, affects our ability to believe something without seeing it first.

If I may use the words of Minnie Louise Haskins, walking by faith to me is summed up in this quote, “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the Hand of God.’ That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'” So what am I saying here? Simply this, when we are asked by God to believe without seeing, we do not have to be afraid. Our Faith in God enables us to face the unknown with complete confidence. We can place our hand into the hand of God and allow him to lead us in the unknown. It is faith in God that will take us beyond the limitations of sense and feeling. Faith will pick us up where sense and feeling will let us down. When we can’t have faith in the situation, faith in God should propel us forward to trust and believe what we cannot see. So go ahead, even when you don’t see it, if God said it, JUST BELIEVE!

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Keeping it Simple, keeping it real! © 2013 Erica M. Goldsmith