I Believe. I really believe. These words can be used in so many contexts, but what do they really mean. I believe what my spouse tells me when we talk. I believe that the chair I am about to sit in will support my weight. I believe that Neil Armstrong literally walked on the moon. I believe that I can do the things that Jesus did and even greater things.
The first of these beliefs of mine (what my spouse tells me) is based upon relationship. I have been married to my wife for almost 20 years (December 3, 1988) and in my relationship with her, I have never found her to intentionally tell me something that was not true. There have been times when I didn't want to believe her and times when I chose not to believe her, but there has never been a time when I felt that she was deceptive in what she said to me. Even in those times when I didn't want to believe or I chose not to believe, I knew deep down that what she spoke was heartfelt and true, because I have no doubt in my mind that she loves me. Because I KNOW that she loves me, I KNOW that she would never intentionally lie to me.
The second of theses beliefs (the chair will support me) is based upon experience. I have sat in that chair or one like very much like it on thousands of occassions throughout my lifetime. In fact, over the 43 years of my life (or at least the portion of it that has passed since I learned to walk and prior to that my mom believed the chair would support me) I have only sat in a chair that collapsed beneath my weight on one or two occassions. Even though some chairs fail, I do not feel the need to test every chair that I sit in because my experience tells me that the liklihood of its failure is so remote that the time taken to test it would be wasted.
Based upon these first two experiences, why is it that my third listed belief (I can do the things that Jesus did) seems so improbable. After all this third area of belief is firmly based upon a relationship that is actually deeper than that between my wife and I. Jesus, himself said this to me in John 14:12, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father." (NKJV) I have never once in my life found that Jesus ever lied to me. I may not want to believe Him and their may be times when I choose not to believe Him, but what He said has always been and will always be THE Truth. Most of all I have a certainty that He loves me and gave up His life for me and because of that love, He would never speak anything less than the Truth.
To have a relationship with Jesus that supports the truth of what He says to me should be sufficient, yet somehow it often is not. For various reasons, I can not base this second belief as firmly on my experience as I can the belief in the chair. There are times when I have no framework for basing belief in what my wife says on experience and must rely solely on my relationship with her and I still believe her. Why then does this not work for my belief that I can do what Jesus did? Perhaps it is because our culture has taught us that we can only truly believe in what we can see, feel, hear, taste and touch. I believe my wife because I have a relationship with her, but also because there are very few things that she speaks that I cannot use my 5 senses to confirm.
In reality my belief in my wife is based upon relationship, but built upon experience - experience gained from the use of my senses. Perhaps this is why Paul wrote to the Corinthians that we should walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). The real reason that I do not believe what Jesus said is that I have not given myself an opportunity to experience the reality of what He said. I will never "experience" the truthfulness of that statement in John 14:12 based solely on my natural senses. I must step out in "faith" in order to experience it. I regret that I have failed in that area. I do not say that I have failed because I have never tried, nor because I have tried and been unsuccessful, but rather that I have never given myself sufficient opportunity to experience the Truth of what Jesus said.
The fact that a chair has occasionally given way beneath my weight, never even crosses my mind when I go to sit down. My experience is so extensive and so powerful that I just don't think about it. However, I must remember that I have sat in chairs on well over 146,000 occasions (using a very conservative calculation of sitting in a chair 10 times per day for 40 years) and I can only remember one collapsing beneath me 1 or 2 times and even if I extend that to situations I caused myself by falling out of the chair through some act of stupidity on my part, it can be no more than a 10 to 15 times. In other words, my experience is so overwhelming that my failures do not effect my beliefs whatsoever.
So, what does all this mean. My relationship with Jesus should be sufficient for my belief in what He has told me, but when I am totally transparent and honest, it is not. Therefore, I have but two choices. Either I choose to no longer believe him because my relationship is insufficient to confirm all that He says and it would be impossible to discern which of His instructions it is sufficient for and which it is not sufficient for. OR, I choose to act in such a way that I gain sufficient experience to confirm what He has told me and thereby firmly establish my belief in what He says. In other words, I choose to walk by faith and not by sight. I choose to take chances and shift the proportions so that they become overwhelming in favor of my belief. I will choose to act upon what Jesus said knowing that in the end, through faith, I will gain the experience that I need to make my belief a reality.
