Faith or Fantasy

John 16:33; 1 John 5:4

Christian Wiman in his book My Bright Abyss wrote “Faith steals upon you like dew: some days you wake, and it is there. And like dew, it gets burned off in the rising Sun of anxieties, ambitions, distractions.” Wiman wrote his book in the midst off battling cancer and gives a pretty honest assessment of one’s reaction to sickness and suffering.

We know as Christians that we are saved by faith. We also know that we are to live and walk by faith as well. But so many Christians have a misunderstanding of what true Biblical faith is. Many define faith in many ways the same as they would define fantasy. Fantasy is the very opposite of reality and when life doesn’t go along the line of our fantasies then faith can indeed be like the dew and burn off in the reality of anxiety, ambitions, and distractions.

We cannot deny the reality of the world and our life in it. Jesus said in our text that there will be tribulations in the world. This is what I love the most about Jesus is that He did not deny the reality of the world. But he does teach us how to live, act, and react too the world of sin, sickness, and suffering. Faith is not dependent on our plans, feelings, successes, or failures. Faith is not rooted in ourselves and our own personal and selfish perceptions. Our faith is not even in some religious system. Our faith is in Christ! Our faith is in him who overcame the world by his death on the cross. He committed his self into his father's hands at the point of death and in this we have no finer illustration of faith in the midst of suffering.

John said, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

1 John 5:4 Wiman would go on to say, “To be truly alive is to feel one’s ultimate existence within one’s daily existence.” We need to accept the fact that sin, sickness, and suffering will be apart of the world and even our own lives and when we live by faith and not fantasy, then our faith will not burn off like the dew, it will be like a refreshing rain in the midst of an awful thunderstorm that soon will pass and the sun will shine again!

Pastor Robby