Perspective and Faith

 

If you came from another planet where there was no such thing as perspective and was asked to drive a train down this rail line you just wouldn’t attempt it would you? Because that rail line keeps getting narrower as it goes. Indeed you would probably say that whoever the engineer was who supervised the laying of the track needed his head read. And yet, I have heard people say “seeing is believing” and “photos don’t lie”. Absolute rubbish! Of course we learn about perspective from the day we are born and we use that knowledge to “over-ride” what we see in the photo and therefore would be happy to drive a train at high speed down this line believing in faith that the Engineer who designed it would have been a reliable person and our eyesight and the camera got it wrong. Actually faith is a very important element in our every -day lives. For example we flick a switch expecting the light to come on, we turn the tap expecting water to flow out, and we turn the ignition key expecting the car to start, and so on. This sort of faith comes from what we have been taught and experienced.

Jesus was approached by 10 men with Leprosy who were quarantined as outcasts because this disease was contagious, and they asked Him to heal them because they had been told that He could heal people. Jesus gave them a direction that tested their faith by telling them to go and show themselves to the priest (so that the priest could confirm that they were cured and give them permission to return to their families). Now that was lovely of Jesus to do that, the only “catch” being that they were still covered in leprosy as they walked away to see the priest. What a test of faith that was! Most people in a similar situation wouldn’t even bother going, but they did because they had faith in Jesus so “as they were going they were healed”. If they had said “this is ridiculous we are not healed” and sat on the kerb looking at their diseased bodies they would have eventually died of leprosy. Faith is seeing things that are not, as though they were, because you know that the one who gave the instructions is trustworthy. As they made their way to see the priest they “saw” their bodies as healed, after all Jesus implied it, they believed Him, so that settled it. On many occasions Jesus said “your faith has made you whole”.

Farmers probably live by faith more than city people because their business depends on it: They regularly take dried up looking seed and sow it into the soil. Then, after the paddock (or field) is sown the farmer looks at it and visualises the young plants coming up. Indeed he “visualises” a bumper crop with the harvester stripping enough grain to fill his silos, which means he then starts to think about where he will store it all. That is FAITH and is a step in the right direction, but it isn’t the faith I am talking about which is really faith in God.

People can let you down, seasons can let a farmer down, but God is faithful to do what He has promised if we have faith in Him. Indeed “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). And “The just shall live by faith”  (Galatians 3: 11). So no matter what the circumstances appear to be we can “Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks because this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We do that because we believe the “Word of God” by faith when it says that “all things work together for good for those that love God”. Remember, bible prophesy was written by “Holy men of God who were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21) and that is why “faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God”; when we read scripture our Spirit recognises the Holy Spirit’s instructions because as Romans 3:16 says “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our Spirit that we are children of God”. It is like that young eagle I spoke about in the last article I wrote; it had never heard an eagle “call” because it was incubated under a chook. But when it did hear another eagle screech it instinctively recognised that call. Likewise when we read the New Testament our Spirit recognises the “voice” of the Holy Spirit talking to us through those who wrote the words and that builds faith.   Best wishes, Tom.