Christian Reflection and Prayer

On God's Authority

1 Kings 19:9, 11-13; Psalms 85:9-14;
Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

"Man of little faith, why did you doubt?"
(Matthew. 14:31).

At the age of four, I knew that God was
everywhere. I spoke to Him...But as I
grew toward manhood, the more I learned,
the less I believed in God...When I was
twenty-one, my superior intellect told me
that God was a fake. Heaven could not be
"up" and Hell could not be "down" because
in space there is no up or down. And I
knew that everything in creation dies,
including the smallest insect and the
biggest star.

These words were written by Jim Bishop,
the author of many best-selling biographies
and histories. "Then one day," he said,

I felt a new experience. I saw the miracle of
birth -- Virginia Lee, a child of my own -- and
it turned my wandering mind around. I began
to doubt my doubts. Gradually I lost faith in
my intellect. It was not supplying the needed
answers.

I could not see the air, but without it I would
die. Thus it is, I decided, with the spirit of man.
I needed something to breathe life into a soul
that had been crushed by the dominance of
the human mind.

What Jim Bishop needed was faith. "I was a
slow learner," he said, But, somehow,
somewhere, as I groped my painful way, I
found my soul...I knew it was there -- wounded,
bleeding perhaps, but alive.

I began to pray, and as faith returned to me,
I feared that it might dissolve again. So I prayed
for continuing faith.

It was only when I gave up -- when I let go and
allowed myself to be carried by God -- that I
began to really feel His Presence. He was there,
and I knew it!

I had wanted proof -- something for my eyes or
ears or hands. He wanted me to believe without
it. Faith and trust are what He required of me!
And He never rested till I found them.1

What is faith? Faith means acknowledging that
God can tell us truths beyond our human power
of reasoning. Faith means accepting truth on
God's authority.

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote...

He walked by faith and not by sight,
By love and not by law.
The presence of the wrong or right
He rather felt than saw.

DO YOU WALK BY FAITH?

(From the editors of Sunday Sermons Online)