Good Decision

You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don't make judgments like that. But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn't make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father. -- John 8:15 - 16 MSG

Deciding to believe something on faith really doesn't come easy for me, and I suspect I'm not alone. You explain something to me in an abstract fashion and I'm probably going to balk at it and ask you to show me an example. I have to see something and study it so that I have an idea how it works and then I can begin to grasp it. Even more so if I have the freedom to tinker and make mistakes...I always learn better when I have the opportunity to fail. Do you know what I'm talking about?

So how on Earth did someone like me ever begin to realize the truth of Jesus...to come to the rational conclusion that He is for real, that God sent Him for us? After all, this isn't something that can be believed based on an abundance of physical evidence.

The freedom to make that decision comes when we have the freedom to fail...in other words, to try and do life on our own. Making decisions based only on what we can see and touch or simply out of the narrowness of our experience does little else besides closing us off to God's love!

Sometimes you just can't explain that to someone who doesn't want to hear it. You can talk until you run out of breath and show them all of the evidence that is there in the Bible, but if their mind is closed it won't do any good. I think sometimes it takes folks, like it did me, years and years of hearing it and not listening, and years and years of failing to make life work without God...sometimes it's gonna take many different people all speaking the Gospel into someone's life before they open their eyes to see and their ears to hear.

Don't be discouraged if you know people like this. Just stick to your guns, love them through it, and pray for them continually. I will literally be eternally grateful because a number of people did just that for me and I plan to thank them one day when we're in Heaven together.