Faith Is Only As Good As the Object In Which It Is Placed – Part 1

28 Mar Faith Is Only As Good As the Object In Which It Is Placed – Part 1

Faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed

James Herriot is the pen name of a veterinarian who wrote a series of books about his life in the Yorkshire highlands of northern England. He had more than his share of unusual and even dangerous things happen to him during his life, some of them due strictly to chance and others brought on by some of his own glaring lapses in judgment.

One such lapse came when he was making his rounds in the hilly high country near his home, driving a car with bad brakes. As he neared a precipitous hill with dangerous curves in the road, he couldn’t decide whether or not to chance driving down it. It was much shorter to go down the steep hill with four menacing turns but, because of his bad brakes, it was a little dangerous. To turn around and go the long way was much safer, but it meant a round trip of nearly ten miles. The place he needed to go was just at the bottom of the hill. He could see it from there. Finally, after much deliberation, he decided to place his faith in the bad brakes. Over the hill he went, dry-mouthed and white-knuckled. It was like the whole world dropped away from him, and the road seemed nearly vertical. From there, I’ll let him tell the story:

It is surprising what speed you can attain in low gear if you have nothing else to hold you back, and as the first bend rushed up at me the little engine started a rising scream of protest. When I hit the curve, I hauled the wheel around desperately to the right, the tires spun for a second in the stones and loose soil of the verge, then we were off again.

This was a longer stretch and even steeper and it was like being on [a roller coaster], with the same feeling of lack of control over one’s fate. Hurtling into the bend, the idea of turning at this speed was preposterous but it was that or straight over the edge. Terror- stricken, I closed my eyes and dragged the wheel to the left. I was sure the car would turn over, but it didn’t, and once more I was on my way.

Again a yawning gradient. But as the car sped downwards, engine howling, I was aware of a curious numbness. I seemed to have reached the ultimate limits of fear and hardly noticed as we shot round the third bend. One more to go and at last the road was leveling out; my speed dropped rapidly and at the last bend I couldn’t have been doing more than twenty. I had made it.

It wasn’t until I was right on the final straight that I saw the sheep. Hundreds of them filling the road. A river of woolly backs lapping from the stone wall on one side of the road to the stone wall on the other side of the road. They were only yards from me, and I was still going downhill. Without hesitation I turned and drove straight into the wall.

I suppose some people would have asked me what I was doing, but not a Dales shepherd. He went quietly by without invading my privacy, but when I looked in the mirror after a few moments I could see him in the middle of the road staring back at me, his sheep temporarily forgotten (All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot, pp. 314-15).

I have laughed at that story until I thought I would injure myself, probably because in smaller, less wacky ways, I have done exactly the same thing. Blind faith is not only futile, it can be downright dangerous. Faith is only as safe as the thing in which it is placed. James Herriot put his faith in bad brakes, and it almost cost him his life.

God wants Christians to have peace, love, and joy in life, but in order for that to happen, we must believe the right things. We must trust the promises of God. That’s why faith cannot lead our lives. Facts must. Once we get our facts straight, we then know where to put our faith.

This is a crucial thing to understand. We do what we do because we believe it will make us happy. We may be dead wrong, and often are, but we do it nevertheless because of what we believe. When a Christian deliberately and knowingly sins, it is a breakdown of faith. He believes that the sin will make him happier than God will. The opposite of obedience, then, is not disobedience. The opposite of obedience is unbelief!

If we believe/trust God, we obey Him.  If we do not obey Him, it is because we do not believe/trust Him.

Therefore it is vital for us to be alert to what we believe and, as we said last week, be sure that what we believe is rooted in facts/truth/reality.

Faith is believing what God has said and acting accordingly.

Some cynics have defined faith as “believing in spite of the fact that there is nothing to believe.” Or worse, “believing in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.” Mark Twain famously said, “Faith is believing in something you just know ain’t true.”

In the classic movie Miracle on 34th Street, Santa Claus utters what much of the world thinks faith is: “Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.”

Going down a slightly different path, in the Walt Disney cartoon Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket sings, “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.” That’s what faith is like for many people. It is like wishful thinking. Jiminy believed that if you wished hard enough, your dream would come true. Many people think that if they just believe hard enough, their prayers will come true. That simply isn’t true. Faith in faith is no good. Believing is futile if you are believing something that isn’t true.

Let me offer a better definition of faith:

Faith is believing what God has said and acting accordingly.

When we do that, we are on safe ground. Our degree of obedience to God and the Scripture is the demonstration of the degree of our faith. It must be facts first, faith second.

Conclusion

Next week, we’ll look at what Christians must believe if they are to be on solid ground with their faith, and how we can increase our faith. I look forward to seeing you then.

For previous posts in this series, the entire “Helpful Tips for Saving Yourself from Trouble” series is in the archives, beginning with the first post on July 26, 2022, Happiness: King Solomon’s Conclusion.

If you know anyone who you think might enjoy joining us in this series, please forward this blog to them and encourage them to go to www.maxanders.com and sign up for the free video, “Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You”, available there on the home page. This will put them on my regular mailing list and they’ll receive my weekly blog.

Share this Blog