THE UNSEEN

Devotional for Sunday 4/21/13

We need to always be prepared to defend that which we believe. To do that, we need to firmly believe and hold fast to that belief.  If we have doubts about our faith in Jesus Christ, it will be more difficult to explain or defend it.  It is more difficult to have a strong faith in something we cannot actually see or touch.  

Then Jesus told [Thomas], “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  John 20:29 NIV

No one has perfectly unwavering faith.  But God will help give us the words needed to defend our faith at the appropriate times.  There may be times that we encounter people who do not believe in life after death, heaven and God, or salvation through Jesus Christ because they cannot see those things.  I love this analogy I saw on Facebook:

In a mother's womb were two babies. One asked the other: "Do you believe in life after delivery?" The other replies, "Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later. "Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?" "I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths." The other says "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short." "I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here." the other replies, "No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere." "Well, I don't know," says the other, "but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us." "Mother??" You believe in mother? Where is she now? "She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world." "I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist." To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her." I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality...."

What a wonderful way to illustrate how we can have faith in something unseen! May God give us the strength to stand up for Him like that as well.

written by Jan Andersen