Faith
“Faith means receiving God. It means being overwhelmed by God. Faith helps us find trust again and again when, from a human point of view, the foundations of truth have been destroyed. It gives us eyes to see what cannot be seen, and hands to grasp what cannot be touched, although it is present always and everywhere.”—Eberhard Arnold in Why We Live in Community (Plough, 2014).
The supper at Emmaus. Caravaggio
Faith is believing in something we cannot see or understand. The mind takes us to a certain level of belief, but then faith must be present for us to take the leap from there. My favorite quote about faith, attributed to a multitude of people, is: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” If we are so sure about something, we have crossed back over that line, away from the place where faith abides.
This gives all of us doubters great comfort. In fact, we know that our doubts lead us into deeper faith—across the line, down new pathways, and sometimes even onto major highways. We may take a wrong turn, run a red light and hit someone, or become completely lost.
Then, that stranger who met us on the road to Emmaus shows up. He may remind us of a quote from Scripture that was meaningful to us in the past. He may ask us if we remember how we have been continually cared for by the God of our understanding and by God’s stand-ins, our community, and our friends. He constantly feeds us precisely what we need to continue the journey, and before he disappears, he leaves on the dinner table a GPS.
