This is real faith: believing and acting obediently regardless of circumstances or contrary to evidence. After all, if faith depended on visible evidence, it wouldn’t be faith. “We walk by faith, not by sight,” the apostle Paul wrote.
It is absurd for Christians to constantly seek new demonstrations of God’s power, to expect a miraculous answer to every need, from curing ingrown toenails to finding parking spaces; this only leads to faith in miracles rather than in the Maker.
True faith depends not upon mysterious signs, celestial fireworks, or grandiose dispensations from a God who is seen as a rich, benevolent uncle; true faith, as Job understood, rests on the assurance that God is who He is. Indeed, on that we must be willing to stake our very lives.
There was a time when eleven men did just that. They staked their lives on obedience to their leader, even when doing so was contrary to all human wisdom. That act of obedience produced a faith that emboldened them to stand against the world and, in their lifetimes, changed it forever.
– Charles Colson, Loving God, New York: Harper Collins, 1987
