Walking by faith

Growing up with a Scottish father might be the reason that I don’t turn on lights unless I really need to see. Instead, I will get up in the night to open a window or use the bathroom without any light. I know where things are and even in the darkest nights, I’ve seldom crashed into anything.

But I don’t do this when we are on holidays, at least not until we have been in the same bedroom for several days and I know the layout. Instead, I pack a small night light in my suitcase.

Walking by faith, not sight, is something like knowing where things are in the dark. As I walk through life, I know that Jesus is with me. After nearly forty years of walking with Him, He has proven His presence. However, I still cannot see Him. There is a day coming when I will, but until then, in a sense, I am absent from the Lord.

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes about death. He uses terms like “our earthly house,” calling it “this tent” and when that is destroyed, we will have “a building” or “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Of course those who know the Lord earnestly desire to be in this “habitation from heaven” on that day when our mortality is swallowed up by eternal life.

Paul knows we cannot see Jesus now, but God prepares us for that day by giving us the Holy Spirit as a down payment or a “guarantee” of the life to come (See 2 Corinthians 5:1-5). Until then, I am “at home in this body” and in a sense, I am in the dark because I cannot see Jesus.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8)

In this context, the phrase of verse seven (that is called parenthetical by one commentary), takes on a slightly different meaning than I’ve always thought. It isn’t about seeing what God can do (as in yesterday’s post), but about seeing Jesus, about knowing that He is with me. I can see other things, but not this One who is physically absent yet spiritually present. Faith is believing that He is here with me, just as He promised. As the next verse says, believing that He is here makes a difference in how I live. “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9)

Way back in Exodus when the children of God came to the edge of the promised land, they sent in twelve spies to check it out. Ten came back and said they felt like grasshoppers in a land of giants. Those ten were walking by sight and terrified by what they saw. Life can be like that for me too. I’m in the dark and might stub my toe, or worse.

However, the other two spies, Joshua and Caleb had faith. They knew that God was on their side and promised to be with them. While the other ten didn’t think God could handle the circumstances, or that they had to do it themselves, these two knew that God was there and that He is bigger than any situation. Their courage to go on was based on the presence of God, and this demonstrates what it means to walk by faith.

Before Jesus physically left the earth and when men could still see Him in His resurrected body, Thomas doubted because he had not yet had yet had that privilege. Finally he did see Jesus and Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

I am one of those so blessed.