The glamorous and hopeful line we have all heard countless times before… seeing is believing.
Sadly, this catchy line has withered and crushed many a faithful person’s faith.
This is the story of those of us waiting to be sure, waiting for it to hit us in the face, waiting for a vision from heaven or the audible voice of God. We look around and feel like everyone else has experiences of God that we have never had, therefore we can’t be Christians - not real ones.
We have not seen, therefore we cannot believe.
This is not just a catchy line, but a crushing myth.
Faith is not seeing miracles, it is not falling over in the Spirit or speaking Spirit languages and it is not even hearing the voice of God constantly in your ear. Faith is what you have not seen. Faith is, more often than not, what you already have but do not believe to be faith for it is too normal, too unglamorous, too steady and everyday and undramatic. Faith is just that…. faithful. It is believing without seeing. It is holding on through the silence, through the storm, through the things we don’t understand and throughout all the mundane. This is a call to the faithful ones; those who have walked with God, sought Him time after time, not given up on Him but also never seen Him in the way they’d expect.
This is a wake-up call to you to say that you are not waiting for faith – you are living it!
‘“The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’
You already believe, although you haven’t ‘seen’.
You are already counted in the Kingdom of heaven and among the faithful people of God.
Yes, we will always need the Spirit’s help to believe in a God that is entirely other to anything in this world and to give us this gift of faith. But once we have this gift to believe in an infinite God who came to earth in the form of Jesus and died for us – we must also hold on to that gift of faith and be prepared to call it what it is!
The tricky truth is… seeing is not believing.
As soon as we see God – if Jesus were to come back tomorrow or the heavens were to open – there is no longer space for faith. We are seeing not believing. So as long as we are waiting to see God, have visions of heaven or hear His audible voice before we believe – or before we believe in our own faith! – we may always be waiting. As soon as we see, we miss out on believing. This is the truly challenging, glorious, unglamorous life of faith. As U2 puts it:
‘You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen’
U2 - Walk On
Let’s live as the faithful ones
Whether we spend our lives seeking to see God or are bowled over by His Spirit tomorrow. The true reward is in our faithfulness, in un-glamorously walking with Him everyday, packing for our heavenly country that has to be believed to be seen.
