Grasping the concept of faith can be as difficult as seizing a wayward bar of soap during an early morning shower. Faith is somewhat synonymous with intangibles such as belief, or trust, or even hope. During your next visit to a local pharmacy, preferably an unfamiliar pharmacist, ask her for a 30-day supply of hope. Most likely, her first response will have a sense of humor about it. It has been said, a person can live forty days without food, three days without water, twelve minutes without air, and one second without hope. Metaphorically, hope is often viewed as an anchor of life. It is not optional; it is a necessity of living. 

We exercise faith every day. We accept the words of the giddy flight attendant, who eagerly accepts our boarding pass, and offers those final words, “Thank you for traveling with us – we hope you enjoy your flight.” We confidently board a tattered gray aluminum fuselage with soft seats and rocket into the blue sky at break-neck speeds - flown by a mysterious pilot.  Would you agree - this requires an element of faith? Absolutely! Dr. Tony Evans, a prominent pastor in Dallas, TX, playfully tells the story of his reluctant mission-minded wife, admittedly fearful to travel into the deep jungle in what she pejoratively referred to as a “puddle-jumper.” Unsurprisingly, Tony admonished her to, “have more faith!” She shrewdly responded, “I don’t need more faith – I need more plane.”  

As a passenger, our confidence and faith is vested primarily in the credentials of the pilot. We are essentially passive during the transport. For the sake of illustration, you might say that we are trusting in the pilot alone. He is the object of our faith.  In much the same way, we must find something or someone in which to place our confidence and trust throughout the course of our lives, and into eternity.  We all have placed our trust in something. In the end, our faith is only as plausible as the object of our faith.

 As a young man, Martin Luther, fully dedicated himself to monastic life and chose to do good works to please God, and yet peace with God escaped him. As co-pilot, He devoted himself to fasting, flagellations, long hours in prayer and pilgrimages. The more he tried to do for God, the more he became aware of his sinfulness. He considered Paul’s writings which declared, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1, NASB, emphasis mine). With joy, Luther ultimately believed and taught that salvation was a gift of God's grace, received by faith and trust in His promise to forgive sins for the sake of Christ's death on the cross. This, he believed was God's work from beginning to end. The noted preacher, Henry Ward Beecher argued, “Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.” Which handle will you choose?