What Is Faith?
By Carol Dyck
Do any of you know what faith is? Can anyone explain it to me, because sometimes I find that faith is a big mystery and hard to understand? So I spent some time this week thinking about faith and I have discovered that I have lots and lots of faith that I did not even know that I had. So I brought with me something that I have faith in.
(pull out the kettle) Can anyone explain to me how my kettle works? At night when it is very cold out, I like to curl up with a nice cup of hot chocolate. So I go to the cupboard and get out my favourite chocolate mix and put it in the cup. And then what do I do? Oh right, marshmallows. Now I need hot water. I get out the kettle, fill it with cold water and plug it into the electric outlet. And then I wait. I do not know how this works. I know that somewhere in Niagara Falls water goes rushing over the falls and makes electricity and then that travels a long way on wires strung up on very tall towers and some how this thing called electricity comes to my house. I trust that when I plug in my kettle, the kettle will some how know how to make the water hot. I do not know how it works but I rely on my kettle to make the water hot. I believe my kettle will work even though I have no idea how it will do it. When I plug in my kettle, I expect it to work. I have faith. Now I could go to study big smart books that would explain how all this works. I could become a brilliant Electrical Engineer but all that learning and understanding how all this stuff works will not change this one fact. I have to have faith to plug in my kettle, have faith that I will be drinking nice creamy delicious hot chocolate. Someone in my life showed me how the kettle works and I believed it.
Now having faith in Jesus is just like plugging in the kettle. Someone has shown you or told you, or explained to you how they get plugged into Jesus. They have faith that when they talk to Jesus, He will hear them and answer. They rely on Jesus to love them and care for them and be their saviour. They do not need to understand everything, they just need to have faith and believe. When you believe what they tell you, then you have faith. And when you see how Jesus works in the lives of other people, your faith grows. And when you believe and trust and rely on Jesus yourself for your own life, then you will be plugged into Jesus too.
I do not know everything about Jesus but I have faith. I trust Him. And I am thankful that someone showed me the way.