Walking by Faith

I never really thought about all that goes into learning to walk.  The coordination, the strength, the balance, and the faith.  It’s this last element that I’ve been pondering since yesterday, when Rebecca started taking her first tottering steps into the great unknown.    Walking truly involves quite a bit of faith.  When she haltingly reaches out a few inches with that little foot, she’s trusting in her legs, in the floor, and in my ability to catch her when she’s no longer able to keep going.  Sometimes, after she’s taken a few steps, her momentum propels her, face-first, toward the floor, but she squeals with laughter as she falls because she knows that I won’t let her crash. 

In a timely twist of fate, my father-in-law is also learning how to walk.  He recently underwent a total knee replacement, so he is slowly, carefully, putting one foot ahead of the other, just like his granddaughter.  He has faith that his new knee, put in place by a surgeon, will hold him. 

2 Corinthians 5:7 says that believers in Christ “…walk by faith, not by sight.”  Just like Rebecca, just like my father-in-law, we trust in what we cannot see.  Our steps are weak, faltering, and imperfect.  But like Rebecca, we know that we will be caught when we fall.  Like Dad, we know that though we cannot see the new life within us, we trust the work of the Great Physician.  We know that the pain of learning is temporary, and will ultimately give way to freedom.  Because I am trusting in the finished work of Christ to atone for my sins, the Word of God “is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). 

Walking by faith is a difficult concept for me to grasp, but as I watch others learn to physically walk, I am reminded of how to spiritually walk.  I can’t ultimately depend on myself, my own strength, because that will fail me (just as it does Rebecca when she careens toward the floor).  I can’t even ultimately depend on the great minds of this world, the doctors, scientists, intellectuals, because they are only sinful, created beings like myself.  But I can – I do – have faith in One whom I cannot see.  Why?  Because I believe in what He did.  He walked a perfect life, suffered and died, and was resurrected as God accepted His sacrifice for my sins.  In the words of the hymn writer:  

“We saw Thee not when lifted high,
Amid that wild and savage crew;
Nor heard we that imploring cry,
”Forgive, they know not what they do!”
But we believe the deed was done,
That shook the earth and veiled the sun.”

The next time you watch young child toddling along – or better yet, the next time you put one foot in front of the other, ask yourself what, or whom, you’re trusting in.  Are you walking by faith, or by sight?