Faith

My scrolling marquee used to contain the following quote from Fred Gailey in the story Miracle on 34th Street - "Faith is believing in something when common sense tells you not to." I found that to be very understandable in an every man kind of way. If you think about the cross - it makes no sense. My friend, Bonnie, a psychologist and PhD came to the Lord about five or six years ago - but as she gives her testimony and describes the experience of being an unbeliever the majority of her 50+ years of life, she recounts this story: Bonnie and her sister Barbara are sitting in a restaurant eating dinner together, and discussing some of Bonnie's struggles with Christianity. The conversation from Bonnie's perspective becomes intense, and she stands up (remember they're in a restaurant!) and says, "You are NEVER going to get me to say that a dead man got up and walked around." Common sense was telling Bonnie just what we know in the flesh - someone dies, they go to the grave, we never see them again - the end. But as Christians our faith tells another story - and our beliefs cannot always be supported by our reason.

So tell me why is it that as a Christian, I enter that first crisis of belief, and surrender my ability to understand all of the hows and whys of the cross - and then spend the rest of my Christian life, struggling to understand every single situation the Lord allows in my life - good, bad or indifferent - from that point forward?? Why don't I accept these mysteries of humanity with the same childlike faith that God is in control of all of them in the same way He was in control at the cross - even when it certainly must not have seemed like it to those standing there on that day! If God is in control, my heart and mind (ah! that's the biggest struggle) must accept that His view is complete. He knows what each hurt, crisis, joy, doubt is making in me - and He intends to use it for His glory. Common sense says I should be able to figure things out - to make sense of the world around me - and yes, in many ways I can - but in so many more - there is just the lingering "why". The only answer is Jesus - that in all of my life He might be glorified.