Listen to Nancy’s answer from the original recording with Moody Radio, click here.

 


The term “blind faith” is a bit of an oxymoron. Faith is based on what you know to be true. If you spent time with God daily through studying the Word and other books of history, and praying, you would develop a strong faith. God created Abraham to know Him and to be the Father of the Jewish nation of Israel. Abraham knew God’s voice and He knew that God loved him and that he could trust God. Because He knew God, Abraham chose to follow him regardless of the circumstances. That is not blind or ignorant faith.

If we look at the account of Abraham when he was told by God to leave his homeland and travel to the land God would show him Abraham responded with a resounding, “yes!”

“Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:1-5).

God did not give him step by step GPS directions; He gave him His word. The journey was about 600 miles and took months for Abraham to enter the land of Canaan. God met him there. If Abraham thought he was going to just rest for the rest of his life, he was wrong. God announced to him that He was going to have a son and Abraham was shocked and had to wait another 25 years to see the miracle birth of this promised son Isaac.

God was still not finished with Abraham. God told Abraham to do the unimaginable, to kill his son, Isaac. We don’t see Abraham questioning it. We see him, instead, immediately obeying God. Abraham was prepared to kill him when God intervened and said, ”Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (Genesis 22:12).

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises and was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrew 11:17-19).

Abraham didn’t act blindly. He used his reason that was based on what he knew about God, he thought it through. He knew God’s nature as faithful, he remembered the promise about Isaac and he obeyed.

Throughout Scripture we see reason, wisdom and logic being uplifted as good traits. People are commended for using their minds to reason through Scripture, they are encouraged to find knowledge and gain understanding. God created humans with the ability to reason and think. He expects us to use the gifts He has given us. When we become Christians, we do not leave our brains at the door. The goal of reason and logic is to find truth and since Jesus made the claim in John 14:6 that, He is the Truth, reason, and logic should lead us to Jesus.

We are expected to act in faith to God’s promises. We may not understand how He will work something out, but we can trust God’s character, His promises, and our experience of walking with Him daily. Abraham had a lifetime of walking with God to have good evidence in his past to draw on to trust God with his future. We can do the same.