A Matter Of Trust

"Let not your heart bee troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.  In my Fathers house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.  And where I go you know, and the way you know."  Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do now know where you are going, and how can we know the way?"  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the father except through me."
John 14: 1-6 NKJV

The original title for this post was going to be "A simple matter of trust."  I scratched that idea when I considered just how difficult our trust can be at times.  Better than that, where is it that we place our trust?  Do we trust in things we can plainly see with our own eyes?  Can we trust in something we have heard to be true, yet we've never seen?  My mother had a saying for these things whenever I would ask her why she believed what she did.  She would smile and say "I just know that I know."  If you ask me, THAT is the definition of faith!  For someone to trust in something they have never seen and accept it as fact in their hearts.  We trust in the air around us, and we know that it is there.  We trust in the coming dawn, even though we have no guarantee of tomorow.  Yet, despite the words of Jesus and the prophets, we find it difficult to place our trust in God at times.  That was me.  How could I?  I couldn't see God, even though the evidence of His presence was all around me.  And If I couldn't see Him, how could he exist?  Still, His word tells me that He is, and that he rewards those who seek Him.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
Proverbs 3: 5-6 NKJV

I believe that it is in those times when we doubt that we are obviously "Leaning on our own understanding."  We know the truth, yet we do not acknowledge it.  We see the forest in front of us, yet we do not acknowledge that our Lords presence is throughout His creation.  There were more than a few hikes I took with my friend Dennis this past summer where he would bring this point up.  God, he would tell me, is evident in all of His creation.  At first, he may as well have been talking to a deaf man.  How could God be in that tree?  That rock?  That river?  Well, when I finaly lifted my blinders, I realized that, indeed, if God created all that we see, then His fingerprints are on all that we see.  The majesty of all that we see is only there due to Gods creation.  Is it that far of a leap, then, to consider the truth of John 14:1?  It is here that Jesus his disciples that He would ultimately come for them after His death.  Of course, the doubting disciple Thomas would  question our Lord on this.  It would be later, after the resurection of Jesus, that this same Thomas would still doubt, until shown the wounds of his Lord.  Seeing, then believing.

I have seen two things that cannot reconcile.  A man dead without question, and this same man alive again.  I pursue Him, the Nazarene, to feret the truth.
~Clavius~

In the film "Risen" the Roman Tribunus Clavius sets out on a hunt for the very man he had witnessed the death of, Jesus of Nazareth.  It is Clavius, in fact, who ordered the spear put into Jesus as he died on the cross.  Imagine his shock, later, as he witnesses the appearance of this very same man whom he oversaw the execution of.  Still he struggled to believe.  Are we not like Clavius?  Knowing the truth, yet not believing?  Or do we find ourselves akin to the disciple Thomas, we see yet do not believe.  We cannot argue that the evidence of our Lords presence is all around us.  We just know that we know.

~Scott~