
Text: John 4:46-54
“Unless you see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
John 4:48
The story we have here is of a nobleman whose son was very sick. On the verge of death. This nobleman sought out Jesus to heal his son. He did this after only hearing of the deeds of Jesus, not having seen them. But, by the faith of this nobleman Jesus healed his son.
How often are we in the same situation as this nobleman; asked to believe with only His word to rely on. Every day we have obstacles that delay our plans, but we forget that we pray “Thy will be done” every day.
As a youngster I had a tremendous learning disability, “I already knew it all.” When in the late 1980’s I reached a point that all of the answers that I came up with, didn’t work, I did what the “Atheist in the fox hole” did - I prayed, asking God for answers. Almost immediately I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. There were still many obstacles. The least of which was not my ego which had problems accepting the simple fact that God is smarter than I.
After I allowed God to be part of my decision-making process, obstacles began to fall away, and my faith grew. There were and still are obstacles in my path. But about this time in my life, I heard one of the pop-psychologists say, “You’ll see it when you believe it.”
I cannot say it better than that. And all of us need to remember that it isn’t “Seeing is believing.” It is “Believing is seeing.”
Like the nobleman whose son is healed or the woman at the well – our faith will make us whole.
~ Tom McGill,
Deacon