The teacher in a children’s Sunday school class
asked what faith was. A little boy raised his and said, “Faith is believin’
what you know ain’t true.”
Many people have that concept of faith. Faith is
the opposite of reason. It’s that special something that helps you hang on in
spite of the evidence or in the face of no evidence, contrary to what
reasonable people know. Faith is what you turn to when knowledge runs out. It
is what you need when beliefs and knowledge conflict.
Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what
he had learned in Sunday school. “Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent
Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of
Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his army build a pontoon bridge and
all the people walked across safely. Then he radioed headquarters for reinforcements.
They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.”
“Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher
taught you?” his mother asked.
“Well, no, Mom. But if I told it the way the
teacher did, you’d never believe it!”
This is the way many people approach life; if
something doesn’t make sense, then faith steps in and rewords reality so that
we have something to hang on to, something to still believe in. Faith is
believing something you know isn’t true, the big leap across the chasm of the
unknown, the big jump no matter what the evidence. But is this genuine faith?
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