Believing is seeing

‘The man took Jesus at his word and departed.’  John 4:50b 

This is the story of the centurion whose son was dying, and he approached Jesus and asked Jesus to come with him to heal his son. Jesus said “your son will be fine, go home to him.” And as the above scripture points out, the man believed him and set out for home. Along the way, he was met by one of his servants who told him that indeed, his son was fine.

This got me thinking. I thought about the man’s faith to believe before he saw the evidence. In fact, Jesus comments how this man’s faith was greater than any he had seen. I thought about the fact that he believed, and then went home to see the evidence of what he believed. This led me to thinking about other parts of Scripture where action brings about fulfillment of the promise. I thought about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. Moses had to step into the water before the water parted. Likewise, as the Israelites went to cross the Jordan River, the priests had to step into the water before it parted.

Here at YWAM Chico, we had a banner that said ‘Believing is Seeing’. It was a bit of a take on the more familiar saying, ‘seeing is believing’. These Scriptures, and others, remind me that truly, believing leads to seeing. It is in our belief that we see God‘s goodness, and recognize the work of his hand.

As we continue to wait to see the fulfillment of his promises to us as we move to Santa Rosa, I have a renewed hope and a renewed belief in what God is doing. Maybe we will be en route before we hear the evidence of what He has done. But we are steadfast in our commitment to go. We believe.