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--- jn_en_2018_01_03 [2018/01/03 11:03] – created potthast
+++ jn_en_2018_01_03 [2018/01/03 11:25] (current) – potthast
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-====== Faith - not Blind but Seeing! ... ======
+====== Faith - not Blind but with Open Eyes! ... ======
-Wednesday, Jan 3, 2018.
+Wednesday, Jan 3, 2018. "Rachel, I will pick you up after your meeting at 11pm," said Thomas.
+"Just walk down the road, cross the footbridge and I will be waiting there on the other side
+with my car." When Rachel walked
+down the road later that day, it was dark already, and somehow Rachel felt uneasy. What if Thomas
+would not be there? She felt a little lost alone in a foreign city. But she knew she could trust
+Thomas, and so she walked a little faster looking forward to meeting her friend.
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-** The Icy River Story ...**
+** With open Eyes ...**
+Trust is something which needs a sound basis. Rachel knew her friend Thomas, and she knew she
+could trust him. She had faith in him, that he would wait for her at the other side of the bridge.
+Her faith was not a blind faith, but it was a faith based on experience, based on facts.
+Too often, people think of faith as some general guessing. They think that someone who has faith
+is believing a statement which he does not know. But the faith which the bible describes is not
+like this. It is not guessing. It is not a conjecture. It is much more like the faith of Rachel
+in our story: based on friendship. Christian faith is based on insight and experience. Nothing
+less is needed.
+You are not asked to believe blindly! You are asked to open your eyes and see. You are asked to
+listen, to understand, and then when you get to know God, you are asked to trust him. The New
+Testament is about light, about the miracle of healing blind eyes. It is about gaining insight
+into this world, into God being there, above it, behind it, in it, everywhere. We are asked
+to open our eyes and see!
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-** Sound Faith! ...**
+** See and Trust ...**
+There is still a step between insight and trust. You can know someone is a friend, but still not
+live the trust. And you can make a decision to trust someone. That might be in a particular situation,
+like Rachel who trusts Thomas to pick her up at the other side of the bridge.
+The bible talks about trust in an even deeper way. She talks about trusting God with our whole
+life, with all what we are, what makes us valuable, what gives us hope and goals, with our whole
+existence. Biblical faith is this deep trust, which gives your life into the hands of God. You do
+not need anything else than him - he is the creator anyway. He is your heavenly father, the one
+who was there from the beginning, and the one who will be there when time comes to an end.
+This biblical trust, which Jesus is asking for, is a whole life style. It is a complete mode of
+existence. It is a whole world by itself. It is easy to enter: we are asked to trust God like a
+little kid trusts its parents. Come to God like the kids do, they have open hearts to trust and
+to build relationships to people. And then learn and love him with all what you have, with all
+your heart, your mind and your soul.
 (Roland Potthast)
 [[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/en/topics_collection_ix|... further texts]]
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