“Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?”

It can be dangerous to make major decisions based on knowledge, sight, and reasoning alone. This is very troubling. What else can we rely on? How about faith?

In our modern, advanced legal system, we’ve overturned well over two hundred convictions that appeared to be very reasonable. I recently learned of a woman who observed her rapist very carefully while being attacked. She later identified a man as her rapist and testified to help put him away for a very long time. Over 10 years later, she was shocked and devastated to learn that based on DNA evidence and a confession from the real rapist, the man she honestly and reasonably believed to be her rapist was innocent. A man of faith, he was able to forgive her.

When Jesus began to speak about his divinity, many people honestly and reasonably believed that he was speaking nonsense. He was Mary and Joseph’s boy. How could he have come from heaven? When he told Peter about how he would die and be raised from the dead, it also sounded like nonsense.

Another thing that sounds like nonsense is the fact Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.” What about the people who died before Jesus was born? What about people in remote villages who will never hear the name, “Jesus”? Is God unjust to make “The Way” so narrow? These concerns are reasonable and genuine. But if God is truly a just God, he will deal with every scenario that becomes reality in the most just way possible. Not satisfying?

Some time after Peter rebuked Jesus for talking about death and resurrection, he followed him up into a mountain to pray. Peter was amazed to see Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah about what he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Clearly, the bible says Moses died before Christ was born; so how could he have been speaking with Jesus during Peter’s time? Moses had been dead for over a thousand years!

The bible teaches that all things have been created through Christ. This must include all who lived before his birth and any person living in the most remote, non-English-speaking village. If Jesus can pre-exist creation, be born into it, talk to Moses after Moses has died, and die for the sins of the people you know about, he can also deal justly with the people you aren't so sure about on judgment day.

Should we then cease to preach the gospel of Christ? The bible speaks of an “angel flying in mid-heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those dwelling on the earth, even to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.” But Jesus told his disciples that they would be his witnesses in “Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” So we’re not exactly off the hook. The God of the bible is powerful enough to accomplish his work both through people and despite people.

Prayer

"If the thing he prays for doesn't happen, then that is one more proof that petitionary prayers don't work; if id does happen, he will, of course, be able to see some of the physical causes which led up to it, and 'therefore would have happened anyway,' and thus granted prayer becomes just as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective." -The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

This quote shows the trap that we can fall into when we pray for things and Klaus Issler uses this quote in his book Wasting Time With God, where he explains how profitable petitionary prayer can be for us if we avoid these kind of traps. He explains how beneficial it can be to take even the smallest requests to God because in doing so, our faith in God will grow exponentially. This book made me realize how often I try to do things by myself first, turn to God only as a last resort, and then give myself or other things and people the credit when the problem goes away. What I should be doing is going to God first and giving him the credit when things work out(even when it appears to be a coincidence that would have happened anyway) because this is what will strengthen my faith in his ability to help.

There are so many things today that we can do ourselves, which is why we feel like we don't need God to intervene. But the truth is that God can still help us with anything we do. All we have to do is ask him. Issler challenges his readers to step outside their comfort zones and make requests to God that will stretch their faith in him. As Dallas Willard says, "The cautious faith that never saws off the limb on which it is sitting never learns that unattached limbs may find strange, unaccountable ways of not falling." God wants us to ask him for help in our lives because that is the best way to strengthen our faith in him.

An old hymn,
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer!