Believing is Seeing

You've no doubt heard the old cliche, seeing is believing.  It is an old and well used saying that is lacking in just one thing: It ain't so.  Seeing is not believing, it is knowing.  Believing occurs when we accept something based on testimony that allows us to come to see a heretofore hidden truth.

An example of this principle from my life is algebra.  When I first took algebra, I did not see how one could arrive at a quantity utilizing a formula filled with unknown integers.  When I first tried to solve for X I couldn't past the Y one would ever think this process made any sense.

However, as I listened to my instructor explain the principles, I accepted what she was saying even though I did not see how the process worked or even could work.  The more I listened and trusted in her testimony, the more I say.  As I came to believe in her words, I began to see the truth of the formulas and the unknown integers became known.

The book of Hebrews puts it this way, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (11:1).  That is not to say that we accept things blindly or as a little boy is credited in saying, "Faith is believing what you know can't be true."  It is to say that we accept things on reliable testimony and/or evidence.

For instance, if you we stranded on the side of a cliff when a fog rolled in, not being able to see how to descend, and having yelled for help you hear a voice coming to you from somewhere in cloudy atmosphere saying, "I live in these parts and have climbed where you are many times.  You are standing on a narrow ledge, much too narrow to risk staying on until this fog clears.  But not more than 10 feet below you is a ledge wide enough to lay down on.  Just hang over the edge and drop to the ledge below.

Not ever seeing that ledge, you would have no reason to think one was there.  But hearing this voice of one who has knowledge of the face of that cliff, you may accept his testimony and by faith envision the ledge below and drop to the safety of the ledge below.

As we listen to the words found in the Bible and come to believe in the testimony of the prophets and the apostles given by the inspiration of the Spirit, we begin to see the truth of the Gospel.  And seeing, we too can let go of the precarious ledge of our self-direction and drop onto the safety of the ledge knowing "there is no Rock like our God" (1 Sam 2:2).  Jus' Say'n.