Faith is a funny concept. I believe I wrote before about faith and how we make leaps of faith every day. We act in faith when we set the alarm to wake us in the morning or when we buy food for the week. Yet, when we are called to make a leap of faith outside the realm of our normal activities, somehow it seems absurd. I see faith as a kind of riddle. Once we know the answer to the riddle, it is so simple and straightforward. What was shrouded in darkness and mystery is fully illuminated and has become obvious. It is hard to conceive of how it could not have always been so. It seems to me that somehow miracles and faith are intimately connected. Once we take the leap of faith—the trusting of something larger than our limited view—the panorama shifts, and it is larger and more beautiful than we could have imagined. But if we stay safe within the castle walls, we can never really know what lies on the other side.
Recently Calvin was engaged in a conversation with his sister about God, the Bible and various teachings and stories. She seemed to conclude that she could not believe in God because she could not agree with certain biblical stories that did not make logical sense to her. It seemed that unless she could fully understand and accept or agree with, on a basic level, all of it, that she must reject the whole thing. What a funny approach, I thought, what subject of any vastness does one approach from the get-go with the idea that I must understand everything about the subject and be in agreement with it before I enter into exploring it? It seems a bit crazy really, but I don't think her reasoning is at all uncommon when it comes to a belief in God.
With almost anything that pursues, there is a great deal of unknowing, yet still a willingness to enter into the subject or activity with the understanding that you learn as you go. If the Bible really is a book in some sense designed or even inspired by God to teach about all of life and spirit, then perhaps its vastness and depth are never fully understood? I think if we are able to embrace the idea of something greater than our current knowing, it lies within that very willingness to actually make it a possibility.
Faith—A few miracles come to mind, one where Jesus turned the water into wine at the marriage of Cana (John 2:1-11), and another, the feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 6:30-44). It is interesting to me in both of these miracles there is something very tangible to our current understanding. However, the call is to take that understanding just a little bit further than our logical left-brain comfort zone. One can certainly conceive of the rain from the heavens nourishing and watering the vine, to produce the grape, to fall to the ground and ferment then voila: "beaujolais nouveau au nature". We can look at a piece of fish in our plate whole and solid, and begin to flake it into pieces—it seems to multiply before our eyes, what was one solid fish is now 1,000 fish flakes ready to feed the masses.
If Christ is in Divine alignment, constant communion, able to carry out his Father's perfect will, it makes it not such a huge leap of faith to conceive of the space time continuum being mastered, functioning outside of the "normal." Even science has concluded that after a road long travelled in aiming to unravel the origins and function of reality, there is a place that arrives at a great mystery—cause and effects changed by the observed. These examples of miracles are concrete enough to grasp, yet demand just a bit more. If one is willing to go the extra mile, the fruit is produced of its own accord. The riddle is answered. Christ calls us to be like children — “Whoever humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:4). These little ones can sometimes illuminate the magical freedom to be found when the logic is not so fully formed as to build a closed cage. We have heard the expression "free your mind" in song and memes, but therein does lie a true thing. The link between mind and reality are perhaps more fluid that we care to embrace. Can we walk on the unsteady waters, yet know we are held and loved by something so much larger and more perfect than we could ever imagine? Only way to know is to dive in with a leap of faith...then let the miracles begin.
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