Faith is incredibly important, and whether or not you realize it, you exercise faith everyday. The question is, where do you place your faith? The Bible defines faith like this. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 )
Let’s consider that definition…
“The substance of things hoped for.”
- You enter an address into your GPS
- You run down directions through mapquest.com
- You plot your cross country trip on an old fashioned map
You hope to find your way to a location you’ve never been before. That is the substance of things hoped for. And “the evidence of things not seen” means that you have faith in your GPS or mapquest directions or map to help you get to where you want to go. You don’t see the evidence of a safe arrival; you simply trust that it will happen – that’s faith, even when the object of that faith is fallible. A GPS is prone to errors; ask anyone who owns one. Mapquest directions aren’t always accurate either, and neither are maps. Maps don’t change with the roads after road construction.
Computers are a great asset and make our lives much easier, but they are only as reliable as their programmers, and their programmers are human, so computers are fallible. My computer has misspelled words, told me something was a fragment when it was not, and highlighted correct grammar, wanting me to follow it’s suggestions to change it to something incorrect. I rely on my computer for a lot of things, but it makes mistakes because the programmers make mistakes.
We put our faith into all sorts of things that have proven themselves unreliable. Too many people believe that if it’s written – in a book, in the newspaper, on the Internet – it’s a fact. But anyone can write anything and have it published, printed, or posted, and a lot of it is inaccurate or false. Yet, the one Book that is 100% accurate, contains only truth, and is totally error-free is regarded as fiction. Why do people consider anything in print to be truth except the Word of God? Is it because the Bible contradicts their ungodly lifestyle and self-centered philosophy?
God expects us to place our trust in Him; not in things manufactured by an imperfect human being whose prone to error. Mankind makes mistakes; God never does. Where is your faith?