How do I know what I know?

Years ago, we lived in a town that held a plebiscite regarding abortion in the local hospital. As the people in our church talked about it, one woman said that she knew the people would vote against abortion. As soon as she said it, I knew that she was wrong, that the vote would go the other way.

The vote did go the other way. How did I know that? And what about the other person who was sure that she knew otherwise?

During more than sixty-five years of life, I’ve experienced this intuitive knowing many times. Maybe my memory is bad, but I cannot remember failures, only one. At least that one thing that I thought I knew would happen has not yet done so. Maybe for me it was more like wishful thinking, not intuition, which seems to be the key to understanding why this knowing is sometimes real and sometimes not. The failures happen because they are based on a strong I-want rather than finding their source in this mysterious intuitive thing.

While intuition is not the same as faith, they are closely related. According to Hebrews 11:1, faith is “the substance (or realization) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith, in a similar way to intuition, is knowing the truth of something that cannot be seen or necessarily proved. I’m not sure I can explain how or why this can happen, but these verses offer a hint. They are from John 3:31-36, where John is describing Jesus.

He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.

One sentence says that no one receives Jesus’ testimony and the next one says those who have received it certify (or know) that God is true. What is he talking about? If no one receives it, then how can someone receive it?

My devotional reading spells it out. He says that we can only “set to our seal that God is true in any one point of doctrine, experience, or precept when we feel an inward witness that God indeed has declared it.”

That is, I can read the Bible, agree that it is right, but there is an additional step that takes truth from my head to my heart. It is the inner manifestation of God’s goodness to my soul. It is that “aha moment” when what I have read burns into my heart and becomes part of how I think. This is the work of God. I cannot make it happen.

This devotional writer also says that this is the only way to know the power and reality of true faith. I must read and understand the Scriptures, but I must also experience a convincing testimony that God is my God, Christ is my Savior, the Holy Spirit is my Teacher, heaven is my eternal home, and the Lord Jesus Christ has guaranteed me everlasting salvation.

All of this is not and cannot be what we sometimes call “head knowledge.” Instead, it is a divine certainty that it is true, even though we cannot see it or prove it. It is like those times that I knew the result of the plebiscite vote, or knew that we would live in a certain house that had already been rented to someone else, or knew that I would win the draw for a book at a particular meeting.

How does a person know such things? Putting the vote, the house and the book aside, I could say I know certain things about God because His Word says they are true. Yet sometimes it seems as if I cannot believe anything. I read the words and I know in my head that they are true, but my heart cannot “set its seal” to them. These truths might even seem a mass of confusion and my ignorance so great that I cannot set my seal to anything. Human intellect or head knowledge does not produce the certainty of genuine faith.

But when the blessed Holy Spirit is pleased to witness to my heart about the testimony of Jesus Christ, suddenly there is a holy certainty of God’s truth. This is divine faith, and it is this faith, not the head knowledge, that brings me through all trials and sorrows and temptations—because, no matter what my eyes and ears may tell me, I know in my heart that God is true.