HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE FAITH TO SOMEONE?

 What does a light switch have to do with faith?

 

Although many people talk about the concept of faith, it is sometimes difficult for individuals to describe how faith works in their own life or operates in the lives of other folks they know. Perhaps, using an example or two based upon experiences that happen to us regularly on a day to day basis might help provide a general understanding of this important principle.

 

When we reach for a light switch on the wall in our house and flip it on, we expect the bulb in a table lamp or ceiling fixture in the room to immediately become illuminated. This is possible because electricity flows through the wiring and into the filament of the light bulb. We can't see the electricity; but we know that when the light switch is in the "on" position, it always provides light.

 

Each time we get into our automobile, insert our key into the ignition switch, and turn it to the right the engine under the hood comes to life allowing us to drive away to our destination across town or  to a city far away. Our expectation is firmly based upon the reality of our oft-repeated past experience . . . we have faith that the engine will always start when we turn the key in the ignition switch.

 

But having faith in electricity or automobile keys and ignition switches does not have the same impact in our lives and eternal happiness as having faith in Jesus Christ! In the Holy Scriptures, we have the testimony of God's special witnesses regarding a sure definition of faith in the Son of God.

 

The Apostle Paul speaks to this point in his epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament of the Bible:

 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

 

Likewise, the Prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon bears a second witness regarding what it means to have faith in the Savior:

 

And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true. (Alma 32:21)

 

Returning again to the writings of Paul, we are told in his correspondence to the Ephesians, that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, (see Ephesians 4:5). He furthers states that we must all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (see Ephesians 4:13).

 

There is much evidence that faith precedes the miracle of one's conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Just as someone wants to believe that the lights will come on when you turn on the switch, we must have the desire to believe what the Savior has said before we can truly believe in Him. You can know that the Lord is the light of the world, but first you must switch your way of thinking. BELIEVING IS SEEING rather than the way natural man perceives that only those things that can be seen can be believed.