…Walk by Faith, not by Sight

Gospel Reflection for 5 Mar 23:

By Ms. Catherine “Cathie” Lambert, OP

            This is one of my most favorite Bible verses.  Many years ago, when I read it for the first time, I knew – without doubt – that this was the way I wanted to live my life.  It’s what I wanted to do, but it took me a good long time to do it the first time!

            Life, I think you’ll agree, is full of unknowns.  At one time or another, it is what makes life miserably terrifying.  The thing is… there is no getting around the ‘unknowns’.  There is no knowing the specific purpose of our lives.  Not for sure.  There is no knowing the best decision to make in a chaotic bundle of possibilities.  Not for sure.  There is no knowing how, when, or why we are going to die… not to mention what will (or may not) happen afterwards.  These are perhaps the biggest questions for each and every one of us.  But all we can do is make assumptions and live as if we knew what we were doing.  Or is it?

            As I read and heard more and more of the Bible, I finally began to take it in.  Some of it – a lot of it – actually made sense in light of my experiences.  Take Abram, for instance.  When God told him to:  Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you._{(Gen 12:1)}  …off he went with nary a question.  And later, when Peter, John, and James followed Jesus up the hill and they saw Jesus – with Moses and Elijah, no less! – in his glorified state (the way he would look when he was Resurrected) Peter’s mouth became unhinged.  He pulled a Peter-thing, as he often did, and proposed a camp-out before even half understanding what was going on.  Misguided, but at least he was willing to do anything and everything Jesus might possibly want!  Right?

            When I was finally brave enough – I tried out this ‘walking by faith’ thing.  Man!  My instincts had me fighting, fleeing, and freezing singly, one-right-after-the-other-and-repeat, and all-at-once!  But, by the grace of God – truly, by his grace – I did it.  And then I did it again.  And again.

            You know, they say that hindsight is 20/20; and sure enough, when I look back over my seventy years, I do see that those times I ‘walked by faith’ and ‘not by sight,’ were the best times.  The absolute best! 

            And, hey!  After all this time, I know a thing or two!  (Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Kiddo!)  This is the biggest thing I know:  Don’t walk by sight – because some day hindsight will show you that when you did walk by sight – you must’a had your eyes closed tight and your fingers stuffed in your ears!  Because that’s just how bad things turned out!  My advice?

Walk by Faith

Because we can’t know…

But God does!