Just off the top of my head, I am thinking of two types of faith, and Im wondering which is preferable. You've got "desperate" faith, which is the kind of faith that calls out to God out of pure need. With desperate faith, I believe in God because I need to, because He's my last resort and I have nowhere else to turn. This is not necessarily a bad kind of faith in my mind. It seems to me that God wants to keep us in a state of desperate need before Him, and so I can see why faith would look more like a plea for help than a confident confession of certitude.
And yet there is that second kind of faith that seems to be out there, that "confident" faith in which a person just "knows" the truth and stands by it unwaveringly. I think of the centurion who didnt even bother to meet Jesus personally when he wanted his servant healed. He merely sent a messenger and declared confidently that He knew that Jesus had the authority to heal and that He would heal if He willed to. This didnt seem to be so much an act of desperation. It rather seemed to be an act of cool, calculated trust. And Jesus called this kind of faith the greatest faith He had seen in all Israel.
At this point in my life, I am only familar with the first type of faith. I am desperate. I need the Bible to be true. I need God to be real. I need Christ to fulfill His promises. I need these things so desperately that Im willing to throw myself upon them in the way that a drowning man might throw himself upon a floating tree branch just hoping it wont sink.
I wish that I could get back to a more confident faith, a faith that believes not merely because it needs to but because it knows to. I guess desperate faith makes me feel a little bit like a mooch sometimes, like that guy who is nice to you just because he needs something from you. Doesnt it just sound better to say "I know you are the Son of God" than to say "I need you to be the Son of God." And yet, I feel like in my heart of hearts I have really only been saying the latter for a while now.
Posted by todd at July 26, 2006 11:05 AM