Just Believe??

An entire industry has grown like a mushroom selling products, conferences, posters, coffee mugs, engraved toothbrushes all motivating people to "just believe". This video captures the essence of the "just believers" in all of it's sugary sacharine Care Bear sweetness:

[Caution, viewers may throw up their mouths just a little bit while watching]

I'll preempt any accusation hurled that I'm besmirching some great people by saying I have much respect for many of those people (Joe Pa of Penn State not the least) but we have to admit that you can pour too much sugar in coffee, and can also add too many rainbows to an inspirational video. ["Besmirch" is such an awesome word! I'm tempted to create a Facebook fan club page for the word. Anybody else in?]

The "Just Believing" philosophy falls short on a few levels:
1) Wrong Focus of Faith. Belief or faith without a reliable object as the focus is futile, or sometimes dangerous. If I believe that my dinner napkin is a good substitute for a parachute when I'm sky diving, then I'm going to have a rough landing. No matter how many rainbows, or what kind of feeling I put into that belief in the napkin, I'm going to be very flat and fairly spread out at the end of my jump.

2) No Focus of Faith."Just believing" without any object of faith is also "falling flat". Belief all by itself, divorced from an object, does not lead to success or motivation. To quote the famous, highly respected and revered philosopher and deep thinker Jack Handy, "It’s easy to sit there and say you’d like to have more money. And I guess that’s what I like about it. It’s easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money." "Just believing" often tends toward inaction. When I was a small kid, I used to think that pressing your hands together in prayer was kind of like a magical action that got you stuff, and the harder you pressed your hands together the harder you were praying. But belief with no object is the same as a prayer offered to the void, both are to no effect, even if there is fantastically good intentions and lots of sparkles and rainbows.

3) Self-Focus of Faith. I'm not opposed to self-confidence, but if you are believing in yourself, see item #1 above. Any student of history (even a mediocre one barely squeaking by with a C-) knows that people are utterly prone to chaos and evil of all sorts. Again, no besmirching great accomplishments of great people, but the soaring successes of human achievement (space flight, industrial revolution, Roman aqueducts, Starbucks grande americano) have their glory due to the Creator ultimately.

Biblical Belief
When I read the Bible is see two critical aspects of belief and faith:
1) The object of faith is the Sovereign God and Lord;
2) Faith is accompanied by action and gets people out of the comfy rocking chair.

Hebrews Chapter 11 is one of the classic passages about faith in the Bible. It is chock full of actions of faith recorded throughout history. I count almost 40 verbs describing the actions that accompanied and demonstrated faith some of which include: built, spoke, obeyed, lived, offered, blessed, chose, left, persevered, kept, marched, conquered, gained, escaped. And then the unpleasant actions as people of faith were: tortured, flogged, chained, stoned, sawn in two. Not many rainbows, butterflies and unicorns there.

Our faith is active, compels us to action as we believe in the God who didn't just sit back in his rocking chair, but entered history to live, die and be raised from the dead for our salvation. I'm so thankful that God didn't "just believe" in Himself. He gave, sacrificed, loved, died, bled, healed, suffered, prayed, walked, sweated, endured, rose, ascended for us. And now Jesus is reigning, interceding, saving, forgiving, sanctifying, and preparing a place for us. And someday He will return, cleanse, judge, rule, make new, and glorify those who believe in Him.