Hebrews 11:1 –
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
Fact and faith clash constantly in our lives and we must decide how we process the data. One of the most debated “facts” outside of God is evolution. Did life on this earth evolve? The argument could last years and no one would change their minds, but it is “fact” that species adapt and “evolve” to changes in their environment, it’s “faith” that they evolve into other species. Many Christians believe the Bible is hard fact, while others contend that God used evolution to create man … both beliefs are “faith”.
Now take my life and the string of odd coincidences that have placed me where I am today. One could argue that the string was orchestrated by me and seeming “coincidences” was were my subconscious was in control. Also, one could argue that it was just a random string of events that I have “linked” together in my mind as some grand tapestry called my life. Or these random events could only have been orchestrated by a “higher” power and therefore God exists. All these beliefs of factual events are pure faith in their meaning.
This starts off a laundry list of people in the Bible that have shown great faith. As we go through the list I find it easy for some to have faith. Think about it, Moses had God speak to him through a burning bush. So did God do this because of Moses’ faith or did this strength his “faith” to actual “fact”? We read this story and can only believe it in “faith” since God has never talked to us through a burning bush. Or has God talked to us and we just figured it was coincidence?
My example of a crystal clear message from God was a tax issue, my options were to file and pay an large sum of money or just sweep it under the rug and say we did not business during this time. I prayed and opened my Bible to a random spot and hit Matthew 22:21 … “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” I blew that off as a random happening and moved forward with covering up the business. A few days later I did the same thing and landed on Luke 20, which is the same story. So did I randomly pick those two verses following a prayer on the subject, did I subconsciously know the location and find it or did God speak to me through two random events? God has become “fact” in my life, now I just need to be able to prove it to others;-)