I’ve heard it said that there are only two guarantees in life: death and taxes. Yet there are actually others. One of these is faith. Everybody born into this world has to learn to live by faith, for it permeates everything we do. Many may argue this isn’t true. Let me give some examples to prove my point.
When my baby daughter sucks during feeding, she does so having faith she will get the milk she needs and desires. When my wife and I put a diaper on her, we do so having faith the diaper will catch all of her waste and keep her clothes clean (unfortunately our faith is not always rewarded as we hope). As young toddlers and children, we get shots because our parents have faith these shots will protect us from terrible diseases.
When we start riding bicycles, we fall off. Falling off often hurts. Yet we get back on and try again, having faith the next time will be different and we’ll succeed. Eventually, we do. As we get older, we want to drive instead of riding bikes and buses. So we take Driver’s Ed, having faith we will earn our driver’s license and get to drive. As we do, our parents tentatively hand over the keys to a vehicle, having faith (though doubt is often strong) that we will drive safely and responsibly.
As children, we also seek out the company of friends, having faith we can share some fun experiences with people who share interests with us. As we get older, we desire a constant companion. So we begin to date, having faith we can fall in love with someone with whom we can share everything. Often the journey to this goal is filled with heartache and pain as we give and get rejections. Yet we continue searching, having faith we will eventually find someone who loves us as well. And when we do, we marry this person, having faith both people in the marriage will continue to work at making the marriage a success.
Next we start trying for children, having faith we can bear or adopt little ones to watch grow. We have faith these children will grow up as we would have them grow up, and that we will have the ability to support their needs spiritually, emotionally, physically, and financially. Even raising these children requires a tremendous amount of faith.
Going to college requires faith the education will help us get our desired career. Job hunting requires faith we will impress somebody and get hired. Investing requires faith our wealth will increase in value over time. Shopping requires faith the product or service is as advertised and will meet our needs and wants. Getting out of bed requires faith something will happen throughout the day to make it worth our time to get out of bed.
If you take the time to explore your life, you will discover everything you have done or will do must begin with faith. Continually doing the same thing eventually turns this faith into knowledge. You begin to know how to ride the bike as you do it over and over again. You know you can share good experiences with your spouse and friends as you do so over and over again. Repetition causes faith to become knowledge, but only after we have practiced the faith in the first place.
Thus we can see everything we do in this life has to begin in faith. This proves everybody who comes into this world has to learn to live by faith. No one is immune. Faith is a guarantee, just like death and taxes.
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