“Blind faith?”
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” (2 Corinthians 4:18a)
“All that glitters is not gold” – so goes an age-old saying meaning not everything that looks precious or true turns out to be so. This can be applied to people, places or things that appear to promise to be more than they really are. Think of how many of those things that glitter can catch our eye and our attention. We end up focusing on them instead of more important things we should be focused on.
We all likely know of situations where someone pursued or followed something which “glittered” and they ended up perhaps ruining their lives or losing an awful lot.
We also often live with a notion that we have to see something in order to believe it. As a matter of fact, one of our United States is even known as the “Show me” state.
Think about all we’ve said so far and then read our Bible verse for this week.
What exactly does Paul mean when he tells us to fix our eyes “on what is unseen?” These words are well explained by other words which God led Paul to write one chapter later in this book “For we live by faith, not by sight,” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Instead of fixing our eyes on the “glittery” things and other things of this life which we can see, touch and feel. We do much better fixing our eyes on the much better things in store for us in heaven. When things in this life don’t go well or seem to be going our way, we live by faith and look to God, trusting that he is in control of our lives and will work things out in the way he knows is best.
So how well are you doing living by faith and not by sight, fixing your eyes “on what is unseen?” Admittedly this is not always easy; as a matter of fact it is sometimes downright difficult. It is easy to live our faith when things are going well or when we are happy and blessed. This is why it is so vitally important for us to keep feeding our faith even when things are going well.
Some people might look at all of this and scoff at us or tell us that we have “blind faith.” Faith may be blind in the sense that we cannot always see exactly what is going to happen, but as a fellow Christian always quoted “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”