What's Wrong With My Faith?

I’m never happy to hear of someone’s death. But sometimes, someone dies and we shake our head, thinking, “He should’ve known better.” A lot of us probably thought that way when we heard about the death of Jamie Coots, the snake handling preacher from Kentucky made famous on the Nat Geo TV show, Snake Salvation.

There was no salvation this time. He got bit. He died.

“Why do they do that?” a friend form church asked me this morning.

I told him it was for the same reason that a lot of Christians manufacture all kinds of supposed miracles.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in a miracle-working God. But let’s remember, miracles were never common place. That’s why they are miracles. They are and have been all through history, very very rare. Even in Bible times, miracles very rarely happen.

But I do think that we can become so desperate for our faith to become sight that we crave seeing the supernatural in the here and now. And because of that, Christians have become gullible to some things that make unbelievers shake their heads in dismay, thinking, “How do they fall for that?"

But miracles in the Bible had the opposite effect. They were called “signs” and those who were used of God to perform them had “sign gifts.” They were signs because it made the presence of God undeniable. These miracles were always obvious and verifiable, never something that could have been contrived.

Not so with the modern miracle movement in many circles of Christendom.

Secular news organizations have exposed the exploits of a number of world famous evangelists for their fakery, some of whom are still raking in fortunes from gullible Christians who are eager to see the supernatural.

The point is this, do we need to see the supernatural in order to believe? Jesus admonished Thomas for that very thing and then added, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe."

Chris Rice wrote about this a number of years ago in his song, “Smell the Color 9”:

I can sniff, I can see, and I can count up pretty high;
But these faculties aren't getting me any closer to the sky,
But my heart of faith keeps poundin’ so I know I'm doin’ fine...

If God decides to give me the supernatural ability to speak a foreign language, I’ll be super excited about that. If he uses me to lay hands on someone with cancer and see the tumor disappear miraculously, I’d be ecstatic. If he wants me to be one of those very very rare people in all of history who see a supernatural miracle, I’d be very happy with that.

But I am going believe either way. I’m his if I never see a miracle. I’m committed to faith without insisting on sight in this temporal life. And I’m not going to pretend or talk myself into believing something that isn’t necessary anyway.

I don’t think that’s having something wrong with your faith. Jesus seem to indicate, that’s having something right.