My husband John and I watched a movie entitled The exorcism of Emily Rose tonight.If anyone besides us two had been watching it with us, they would have been seriously annoyed. We both kept periodically stopping the movie to discuss various concepts or thoughts that it brought up. John and I enjoyed our conversations every bit as much as the movie. The movie is a cinema-tized version of the real life story of Anneliese Michel.
One of the many themes that the movie brought out for John and I was that every miracle of God can be explained away if that's what we choose to do. The majority of this movie takes place in a courtroom where the priest who performed an exorcism is on trial for negligent manslaughter. One of the interesting things is that no one claims the priest is lying; the prosecution does however, provide scientific facts that provide an alternate explanation for every supernatural event that the priest recounts, or for what he has on tape recording.
Isn't this just so in life???
John and I talked a lot with each other about specific events or situations in our world that he and I see as truly demonstrating the reality that there is a God; yet we've repeatedly seen other people give scientific facts for these same situations and events. The truth is that we see things how we choose to see them.
Faith by it's very essence is a choice. Faith also can not be proven via the concrete, measurable, verifiable methods that our society holds in such high esteem. I see the merit in using objective, verifiable, data, to analyze situations. I use this approach frequently in my job. But I do not think this is the only approach to truth.
There's a common expression, leap of faith. I think we use this term because at some point, if one is to have faith, one has to step out beyond what one can "fact-ualize" and simply make a choice to believe.
I've never regretted any of the choices of faith that I've made in my life that relate to God and what He's spoke to my heart through the Bible.
What about you, have your leaps of faith produced good things in your life? Or have they produced regrets?
2 comments:
It is an interesting thought that miracles can be explained away. I know there are a lot of intellectuals that think they have good scientific reasons for things they have not witnessed. In fact Christians do the same, they claim faith for certain things they have not witnessed.
Certainly there are some things that no one witnessed such as the creation and that sort of thing. That is why there is a debate.
Once you have seen melanoma fall off and be healed, or a person on oxygen who was scheduled for a lung transplant running around the sanctuary shouting "Glory to God!" or a little girl who was mute say Jesus for the first time, you tend to lose doubt your science.
That is one of things that I loved about the Vineyard movement, they showed before and after x-rays whenever they were available.
Even the Jews at the time of Jesus did not believe. Read the story of the blind man in John 9.
In the end it is about true faith, not belief. The Kingdom of God is one of power, not talk.
Excellent, Tracy!
Faith is to believe when your common sense tells you not to.
God bless.
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