February 28, 2024

Recently as I was driving to the television studio to record “Jim Cantelon Today”( JCT TV) the black clouds and driving rain made visibility almost impossible. Along with all the other drivers I had to reduce speed to a crawl. I say “all” but there were, as you would expect, a few cars and a truck or two that rushed past at a reckless rate, spewing swathes of standing water onto our already overwhelmed windshields. At any moment I expected the worst. For sure there would be a pileup of crashed vehicles. As it turned out I made it through unscathed but it took an hour or so when I reached the studio for the adrenaline to subside.

 
It struck me as I drove that this was an instance of driving “by faith and not by sight”. I had to have faith in the other drivers with no guarantee that they would keep to their lanes and not race through the storm like those few irresponsible speeders.
Indeed, even in the best driving conditions we drive by faith in other drivers that they will obey the rules of the road and not careen through the traffic like they’re in a car race. And, to change analogies, we eat the food we’ve purchased, we sleep in our beds at night, and live our daily lives trusting the integrity of those who supply our needs.

From time to time our faith in others is tested. A case in point would be scores of drivers who are facing huge repair costs because a local gas station last week in Ontario served gasoline that was mixed with windshield washer fluid. They filled their tanks in faith albeit without any sense that faith was involved. Good gasoline is a given no?

The Bible states that we “walk by faith and not by sight”. We put our trust in the Lord even though He is unseen. We hope for a home after death in an as yet unseen heaven. We order our core values and day to day lives with a sense of accountability even though “no one  has seen God at any time”. Little wonder that those who don’t believe see us as offside with the general culture of the world. St. Paul captured it when he said, ”We see through a glass darkly”. We’re more blind than sighted, but we put our trust in our Heavenly Father, holding his hand as a little child, believing “He knows the way that we take”.