Help Our Unbelief. . .

I have been giving a lot of thought to a post I read a few days ago on the Evangelical Outpost entitled "Plagued by Certainty." In sum, Carter indicates he simply never has doubts about his faith nor fears death, while his wife struggles with unbelief and the thought of death regularly. I imagine that if you took a survey of Christians, you would find more that struggle, from time to time, with unbelief than those who express absolute certainly as to their convictions all the time.

That leads me to the following question. Are we required to have certainty or faith? I do not know that they are the same. To be absolutely certain of anything would we not have to be God?

Consider this hypothetical. There is a wooden chair that you intend to sit in. Before you sit in it, can you be certain that it will not break? What if you have a structural engineer examine it first? He says that it is safe. What if you have a five (500) hundred pound man sit in it to test it out? It does not even creak. What if you have sat in the same chair a thousand (1000) times before? You never had a problem. Still, can you be certain that this time it will not break? Even given the previous tests, I submit that you can not be certain that the chair will bear your weight. However, you do have faith that the chair will not break and because of your faith, you sit down. It does not break. You were not certain that the chair would not break, but you did trust that it would not and acted on it. Is that not the difference between faith and certainty?

John Calvin's examination of the Mark 9:24 is very helpful in understanding our belief/unbelief. Calvin writes in his commentary:

"Lord, I believe. He declares that he believes, and yet acknowledges himself to have unbelief These two statements may appear to contradict each other, but there is none of us that does not experience both of them in himself. As our faith is never perfect, it follows that we are partly unbelievers; but God forgives us, and exercises such forbearance towards us, as to reckon us believers on account of a small portion of faith. It is our duty, in the meantime, carefully to shake off the remains of infidelity which adhere to us, to strive against them, and to pray to God to correct them, and, as often as we are engaged in this conflict, to fly to him for aid. If we duly inquire what portion has been bestowed on each, it will evidently appear that there are very few who are eminent in faith, few who have a moderate portion, and very many who have but a small measure."

There is no doubt that we must believe the Gospel. We must believe that Christ will get us to the promised land. But how much faith is enough? Any will suffice. May we continue to grow in faith until that blessed day when we will no longer need faith, because we will see with our own eyes.