Faith is a strange and powerful thing. Its power flows from
its weakness. I have faith in things that are not proven, maybe even
improbable. But they are also the most important things. They are the things worth
believing most.
What do I have faith in? God. Love. God is love, so both go
together [1]. Is love probable? Is love viable?
Has love ever built an empire or has warfare? Does love
stimulate economic growth or do competition and self-interest? Does love
maintain international peace or does a balance of power, realpolitik? Does
history prove out the politics of Jesus or of Machiavelli?
Why put faith in something so improbable as love? Love means
vulnerability. Love is a risk. It may not succeed. Yet the apostle says
"love never fails" [2]. What a strange and powerful testimony. Faith
in God, faith in love requires passion, requires unflinching commitment. It is
a choice. Faith is a decision to take a risk. And it is the courage and
tenacity to take this risk that gives you the power to come off conqueror [3].
It is in faith that I make the decision to love people. Not
just love in the abstract, but love of real people with all the risk that comes
with those relationships. Every relationship, every person I encounter is a
risk, requiring faith. Why do this? Why believe it? It is because I "desire
to believe" it [4]. It is because it is "delicious" to me [5]. It
is because I choose to discover something unique and exhilarating in each
person. I believe that this is the kind of life worth living. It's the kind of
life I desire to live.
This is the strangeness of faith. If it were something
certain it would be stable but it would not be vibrant. It is because it is
uncertain that faith is passionate and active. It is not an objective fact
presented to me, a passive observer. By faith I must actively take the Word of
God and plant Him in my heart and allow Him to change my nature [6]. I have to
participate. I have to take a risk, make a decision and choose love, choose
God. The truth I hold in faith becomes my own and by making it my own it
changes me into something new [7]. And that is strangely powerful.
1. 1 John 4:8
4. Alma 32:27
5. Alma 32:28
