Today’s Scripture Reading (September
15, 2014): John 10
I am
convinced that life should come with a “faith required” tag. Or maybe all of
the lies of the past have just made us really cynical. And it is not just the
people who believe that Adolf Hitler and Elvis are still alive (I saw them
having coffee together in New York just last week. By the way, Hitler would be
125 years old while Elvis would be only be a spritely young age of 79.) But it
amazes me the number of people who refuse to believe that man has ever walked on
the moon, or even that such a simple thing as gravity exists (I was told recently
that there is no Law of Gravity, only the Law of Repeated Events. It is not
that there is an attraction between bodies, only that the apple will always
fall down.) We seem to exist in an area of life where if we have not
experienced an event first hand, or if it does not fit into our belief pattern,
then we do not believe in its truth or reality. Faith in every area of life
precedes knowledge. (Enter the Creation vs. Evolution debate. Both sides have long
made up their mind long before the first salvos of the discussion are fired.
They believe in what they have faith in [Creation or Evolution.] It is the only
explanation that I can come up with why some extremely smart people hold some
really stupid beliefs – ah, but that is probably just my faith shining through.)
If you are
wondering where I stand on some of these major issues, I am a Science Fiction
reader and there is nothing that intrigues me more than the thought that one
day we might be able to travel through space. My faith, if you want to call it
that, not only allows for the belief that we have already been to the moon, but
for the possibility that even now we are planning to colonize Mars. That one
day we will be able to mine much needed resources from the Asteroid Belt and
that we will have a Jupiter base on the one of the many moons orbiting that
planet – maybe even Ganymede. And someday, we will figure out how to travel
faster than the speed of light and we will be able to visit other solar systems.
But before belief comes faith.
I am a
scientist and the wonders of this world are very real to me. I see a unique
beauty in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution that a number of my colleagues seem to
miss. My faith allows me to believe that minute changes accomplished over time
can make a huge difference – and that the species separate and develop because
of them. But my faith also knows the reality of God, and all that I know that
God can do. I believe in evolution … but I love Jesus. And the thought that in
the beginning God, through the person of Jesus Christ, used evolutionary
techniques to mold our world, and ultimately us, to me is a very beautiful
thing. My faith has taken me there. And the reality that I seem to understand
in the world is not that without faith we can all believe what is rational and
objective. The reality is that without faith we can believe in nothing.
Jesus says
that in spite of all of the evidence that he is the Christ, the Son of Living God
come down from heaven, some do not believe because they are not his sheep –
they have no faith in him. As much as we may want to argue logically for God,
the cold hard truth is that no one will find God who is unwilling to first take
a step of faith in him. And this does not just pertain to God, but to everything
that we believe in life. Faith must come first before we can see the truth in
anything.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Luke 10
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