Faith
“Faith means receiving God. It means being overwhelmed by God. Faith helps us find trust again and again, even when, from a human point of view, the foundations of truth have been destroyed. It gives us eyes to see what cannot be seen and hands to grasp what cannot be touched, even though it is always and everywhere present.”—Eberhard Arnold in Why We Live in Community (Plough, 2014).
Faith is believing in something we cannot see or understand. The mind takes us to a certain level of belief, but faith is what enables us to take the leap from there. My favorite quote about faith, attributed to many people, is: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” If we are so sure about something, we have crossed back over that line, away from the place where faith abides.
This gives all of us doubters great comfort. In fact, we know our doubts lead us into deeper faith—across the line, down new pathways, and sometimes even onto major highways. We may take a wrong turn, run a red light, hit someone, or become completely lost.
The Supper at Emmaus. Caravaggio
Then that stranger who met us on the road to Emmaus shows up. He may remind us of a Scripture passage that was meaningful to us in the past. He may ask us whether we remember how we have been continually cared for by the God of our understanding and by God’s stand-ins, our community and our friends. He constantly feeds us precisely what we need to continue the journey, and before he disappears, he leaves a GPS on the dinner table.
Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/