Talk Tuesday-When Faith Pierces Through the Darkness of Sight

Sight can often bring a blinding spiritual darkness that causes us to stumble, lose hope and fall into despair. We may spend days, months, and years fervently praying about something or for someone, only to see the situation remain the same or become worse. When we begin, we expect God's answer to come speedily, with the swiftness of a defender's arrow or the protective cloak of a hero's cape. Yet sometimes, we are made to wait, and wait, and...wait. We are gently reminded, "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day,” 2 Peter 3:8. 

So what is this thing called faith that is so powerful that it can be a small as a mustard seed and still bring down a mountain; so edifying that it sustains our very lives?

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Matthew 17:20

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,’” Matthew 4:4. 

Faith is trusting in the benevolence of a loving God whose love knows no sacrificial bounds: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” John 3:16. 

Faith is going beyond the blindness of sight into the stubborn acceptance of God's reality; it is trusting in His Word beyond the frailty of today. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,” Hebrews 11:1.

Faith is allowing His Word to guide our earthly steps into the eternal reality of heaven's narrow gate. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path,” Psalm 119:105. 

Faith is knowing that God does not lie, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change his mind. 
Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” Numbers 23:19.

Faith gives us the courage to obey-to go out to the brokenhearted, the disenfranchised, the poor, the forgotten, the wounded, and the outcast, knowing that we walk with the power of Jesus Christ to be His hands and feet upon this earth. It enables us to look beyond our selfish borders into the unfamiliar territory of other people's pain. Just as God sent His Son, His Son now sends us:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
 because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. 
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, 
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness,
 a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendour. Isaiah 61:1-3

So, in the light of the darkness we have just witnessed here in North America-the shooting at a bbq at Danzig St. in Scarborough, Ontario and the mass murder at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado-let us remember to hold on to the faith that pierces through the darkness of sight. It is a faith that motivates us to love.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8