On the Kara/Kerewe survey a couple weeks ago we brought along a portable Katadyn filter so that we wouldn't have to spend money on bottled water. While I drink Katadyn filtered water on a daily basis, I hadn't ever used a portable one and it gave me a bit of an insight regarding how faith works.
The first couple of nights the water looked like this before being filtered:
It wasn't hard for me to feel confident that this water, going through the Katadyn, would come out clean and free of disease. The water looked pretty clean already, I just had to have faith that the Katadyn would do its job, and it wasn't hard to have faith for that.
When what we can perceive with our five senses doesn't contradict what we know about God, it is easy to have faith.
Now, due to having a dark nalgene (covered in stickers), once the water was in the bottle, I couldn't really see the quality of the water. So, when the water started looking like this (before being filtered)...
...its safe to say that my faith in the Katadyn was tested. This is a trusted product that I have used for years and it has a reputation worldwide for filtering water...but how much did I really trust it? What I was seeing (and smelling) made me question my faith in the Katadyn and I couldn't simply look at the final product before drinking it to ensure that it at least looked clean. I had to drink in faith, trusting that the faithful Katadyn had done its job. I could decide to run out and spend money on bottled water, or I could step out, in faith, and drink the filtered water, trusting in what I know about Katadyn, having faith that despite what my senses were telling me, it was safe to drink the water.
I drank the filtered water and I'm not sick! So, my faith in Katadyn was proven to be well placed, but my faith couldn't have been proven had I not stepped out and drunk the water first.
Maybe this will challenge your faith as it has mine:
In what ways am I relying on my five sense and having more faith in them than I do in God?
Do I really only have faith in God when my senses agree with my faith, or does that faith still hold just as strong when everything tells me to question it or doubt it?
Are there times that I need to be stepping out in more faith despite what reason, logic and worldly wisdom are telling me?
Stay tuned for the answers, they may come up in future blog posts, we'll see.
For faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 NASB)
awesome! What a great illustration: simple and fitting.
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