Blind Faith

In the late 60s, there was group called “Blind Faith,” the two most well-known members of which were Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton. The news is that they are planning to renew their musical group. We are told in Scripture that we walk by faith and not by sight. As a veteran who has been blind for over forty years, I can attest to walking by faith and not by sight. I have always been amazed that those who have so little faith in God will go right out to the mailbox and put a letter in it addressed to someone in New York City, believing that through all the processes of the postal service, it will get there. Never have I known anyone to stay by the mailbox, follow the mail truck to the sorting room, follow the mail on the train or plane to New York City to another sorting room, and then make sure its put in the right post office box. We have the faith to believe that the postal service knows what they’re doing.

We exercise our faith in human beings all the time as we lay on a table in a hospital operating room, where we believe that the doctor holding the knife or the anesthesiologist administering the anesthesia know what they’re doing because either could kill you instantly. Likewise, we get on an airplane and go many thousands of feet in the air knowing that unless the pilot at the controls knows what he is doing, that is a long distance to fall to a certain death. Every day we drive down a highway at tremendous speeds with only a few feet separating your vehicle from an oncoming vehicle driving at tremendous speeds. We have faith enough to believe that the approaching driver is not going to venture on your side of the highway, which would result in your instant death. The definition of faith is action, based on belief, sustained by confidence. I believe that faith is a verb and that 90% of faith is just raw courage.

St. Thomas Aquinas, born 1225, who wrote 34 volumes said he gained more faith by looking at the cross than in all his study.

I hope in this democratic republic that when citizens go into the voting booth, they spend some time in prayer before they cast their vote because we need the faith to vote for the right person. So often the politician running for the job is so influenced by the money available from lobbyists or other corrupting influences that the politician forgets his principles. One of my best friends, Robert, was chief aide to a congressmen from North Carolina. He told me that their entire day was punctuated by buffets and other entertainment provided by people trying to influence their vote. He said the only time this congressmen ever paid any attention to a letter from a constituent was one time when a man wrote a letter on a brown paper bag.

Our court system is supposed to be a matter of faith. Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but those of us who have been there know that the last place to find justice anymore are the courts of this country. Almost daily we see a case reversed because a judge has found that a condemned person did not have adequate representation and cases on appeal and officers of the court such as those in Durham, North Carolina, where some students were wrongfully convicted, are a national disgrace. Even the Supreme Court has become a political zoo rather than a temple of justice. A FDR justice, Hugo Black, was a member of the Alabama Klu Klux Klan. Justice Felix Frankfurter would hold a large sheet of paper between himself and Justice Black because he would not even look at the man, he had so little respect for him. Nor was a photograph ever made of that court.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? Galatians 4:8

So let us keep on coming boldly to the throne of grace, so that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16

These two verses from God’s inspired word will give any believer reason for faith. The greatest strength of the military, other than the esprit de corps which exists between men and women who work together, is the faith that they must have in one another that the systematic training in all areas of the military assures each other that one can depend on the other regardless of what happens, in time of peace or war. This is the main reason that most military officers advocate well-paid, well-educated professional soldiers rather than draftees. As we learned in the wars of the past, most who have been drafted do no want to be there, do not want to learn, and cannot be depended upon at the critical moment. That is why the death rate among draftees was so much higher than that of the professional soldier. It is a known fact that you must be able to depend on a soldier in the army as well as a person of total conviction in the church or in any civil responsibility requiring accurate, decisive action.

In this pathetic bail-out legislation totaling 789 billion dollars, if we get every job which this president expects to get from this legislation, each job will cost $600,000. Do you have the blind faith to put this type debt on your children and your grandchildren as far as the eye can see?

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. How does any person live in these critical times with the insanity embracing the political system and judicial system of this nation without the faith that we have someone who will care for his own?