Friday, February 20
Day 3 - Faith
by Eric Murray
[The Lord] brought [Abram] outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. - Genesis 15:5-6 (NRSVue)
Looking back some fifty or so years ago, I recall a time when, late at night, I laid down in my family’s yard in suburban Atlanta and looked up at the night sky. This was long enough ago that the city’s light pollution had not yet hijacked the night. I figure it had to be winter. Summer night skies were rendered opaque by the high humidity common to the South. The air, thick and heavy like a blanket, veiled the stars from sight. Not so in winter. The cool crisp air, no longer clouded by humidity, unveiled a sky resplendent with stars. So many! Too many to count…Too many, I figured, to be an accident.
As I lay there looking at the sky so vast, each star a sun ablaze with light, I felt deep within my spirit an epiphany. How could all of this have come about just by happenstance? Something or someone had to be behind this vast and resplendent universe. Someone had to begin it. Someone had to be holding it all together. As I laid there, one small solitary life looking out upon this vast universe, I thought, all of this, every star, every planet, including the earth upon which I laid, every body, including the body I inhabited, everything just had to be the work of…God...Yes, this is most certainly true.
Although, I could be wrong about that. I mean, I can’t prove it. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of God. My assertion that God is the force behind the creation of the universe is a matter of faith. And,… faith is not certainty.
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Do you recall a time or times in your life when you had a sudden epiphany of faith? What did that epiphany look like? Was it a big, impressive show? Or, was it subtle, easily overlooked? Either way, what did that “unveiling” reveal to you? How did your faith grow as a result of your experience. To what or to whom would you attribute this growth?
