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March 2 - Hard Hearts, Hard Words

We cannot set ourselves up as the judges of God. Much as we would like God to “prove” himself to us, our disbelief is not so easily addressed.

“One day some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, ‘Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.’”

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But think: these people had been following Jesus and watching him like hawks for months. He was under constant scrutiny. They had seen him heal people over and over and over. His ministry was full of miraculous signs, done in full sight for all to see. Miracles abounded. And now they wanted a sign, “…to prove your authority.” And had he produced a sign, do you think they would have believed him to be the one promised by the prophets? These men who had seen him heal the demon-possessed and then held that he was able to do so because he was empowered by Satan? No. For them, seeing was not believing, and their request was not made in the spirit of eagerness to find and follow the Messiah.

Faith is the product of choice. We choose to believe that we are important in the flow of this world line. We choose to believe that we are in love…or that another is in love with us. We choose to believe that our children are more important than simply being the carriers of our genes for another generation. We choose to believe that “right” behavior is best for us and others.

Our lives are full of choices that we make, and many of those choices are expressions of faith. We cannot “prove” that our faith choices are real, yet we live as though they are.

At four specific times in my life I have chosen to believe in God. When I was a pre-teen I chose and was baptized. As a young man in college, my faith challenged intellectually, I tested the basis of my faith and chose to continue as a believer. As a mature man with a family, during a time of crisis I had to find out if God/Christ was sufficient to lead me through the damage of my emotional history. I decided that he was. And as an older man, no longer in the ministry, I have examined again beliefs…faith…that I have held for so many years to see if they held up under ordinary life away from the institutional church. And my faith holds, with an eagerness to see the final chapters.

I have found that a critical spirit, a predisposition to disbelieve, is of little help if I wish to live with hope, peace, and contentment.

Buechner says that faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is sometimes not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway. Paul Tillich said that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. Almost nothing that makes any real difference can be proved. I cannot prove that life is better than death or love better than hate. I cannot even prove my own free will; maybe my most heroic act, my truest love, my deepest thought are all just subtler versions of what happens when the doctor taps my knee with his little rubber hammer and my foot jumps.

“…show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.” Their request was impossible to satisfy. The answer they sought could be found only in the choice to believe, and then to follow all the way to the end, because only there could the answer to their search be fully realized, and the hunger of their souls satisfied.

Prayer: “Father, a man Jesus once healed said, ‘I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.’ I ask you to help me as well, until my belief is so rock solid that it absolutely cannot be shaken. Of course, by then I’ll be in heaven, won’t I? In this life, help me to take full advantage of the opportunities of faith…to know that life is good because you are good, and to know that love is powerful because you are powerful. Help me, Father, to do right and to walk humbly with you until you take me into the great forever you have prepared for all who choose you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”


Taft Mitchell, 2/22/2013