We Walk By Faith
In 2 Corinthians 5:7 the Scriptures state "For we walk by faith and not by sight." Difficult questions are out there. Why does God allow those terrible things to happen? Innocent children become victims of war or crime or hunger. Good people fall victim to disease. The list could go on. This world provides plenty of examples every day of things that are not what they ought to be. God does not cause these things - but many would ask why does He even allow them if He could stop them? The truth is, while we may be able to find some answers in Scripture, we do no fully understand. We walk by faith and not by sight. At least we have the ability to look at our fallen world and recognize that not all is as it ought to be... we comprehend right and wrong even in the darkest of places. Please remember: whenever we see something that strikes us as being "wrong" we are affirming that there is right and wrong. Such a concept would have no meaning if we were mere accidents of nature which evolved by chance in a universe without God. But if we are created in the image of a moral and just God, then "right and wrong" makes all the sense in the world.
Faith accepts that God is loving and good even when our present
distress would tend to hide those qualities. Faith endures and does not charge
God foolishly (see Job 1:22) nor does it curse God and die (see Job 2:9,10).
Faith accepts that there is much in the infinite picture that we do not yet see.
It looks beyond the present cares of this world and time to a life beyond where
God promises that He will "wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall
be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more
pain." (Rev. 21:4). Those things of which we might say, "That's not right" are
often the same things of which God has said, "That's not right" as well and they
are a result of living in a fallen, sinful world. Faith waits patiently for the
Lord, putting Him first always, despite the present distress, and trusts in Him
to bring us safely to that day when faith will become sight.
By Jon W. Quinn
Final Page
From Expository Files 10.7; July 2003
