We were all born into a material world. Everything around us is made up of things we can touch, see, smell, hear, and even taste. After our birth, we spend the first couple of decades of our lives getting to know that world, how to live in it, and how to use and master it. “Seeing is believing” is the motto we live by. Then, we spend the majority of our time interacting with it.
The visible, tangible, material world is our comfort zone.
Perhaps that is why we so often struggle to fully trust an invisible God.
When we repent of our sinful nature and surrender our lives to Him, we sign up for a new way of seeing, which is like starting over. The Bible calls this “spiritual infancy” (see Hebrews 5:12). New Christians must learn to interact with the spiritual realm, in particular, the Triune God Who created and rules it. We start with baby steps and grow faster as we progress.
They must learn the reverse – that believing is seeing:
We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
It’s right in line with what we have already learned in Hebrews 11:1:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
The latter half of that definition means “the absolute knowledge that the things not seen are real and true.”
As we slowly but surely become comfortable with a spiritual world that rules the material world, we learn to have greater faith in our invisible God—not just in theory—that He exists, that He knows us and cares for us—but in practice. We learn to ask Him for things, to listen to His voice, and to trust that He will work on our behalf when we need His help.
Little by little, we learn that our invisible eternal God is more trustworthy than the material and temporary world we learned to live in.
We learn that “seeing is believing” is a lie. God designed us to see by believing. He caused His Spirit to live in us in response to our repentance to awaken that ability in us and to reprogram our minds so we would trust Him more than the visible world. In other words, we live by the reality Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 2:14 – The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
The good news here is that we don’t have to struggle to understand spiritual reality in our own strength. The Holy Spirit, Who is with us and in us at all times, teaches us and reprograms our minds to do so. The more we learn, the more solid our faith becomes, and the more we live by God’s motto: Believing is seeing.
Unfortunately, it is not without struggle. Our natural inclination to believe what we see puts up a fight.
It’s up to us which side wins: faith or sight.
The difference? What we decide to set our minds on. The Holy Spirit does not force His teaching on us. We have to seek it and embrace it. We do so by giving Him the first fruits of our time and attention. If we give Him the leftovers, the material world wins. According to Paul, it’s all about what we put first in our minds:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1-3).
That’s a decision we have to make every morning anew: do I set my mind on the earthly things that crowd in on my life so I can maintain my creature comforts and a sense of control, or do I set my mind on the things of God so I will grow in my faith and my knowledge of Him? Our flesh wants the first, the Holy Spirit wants the latter. It’s up to us to make the decision to put the demands of the material world on hold and turn our attention to the invisible Holy Spirit to teach us about our invisible heavenly Father. The first is an investment in the temporary and perishable, and the latter is an investment in eternal life.
I speak from experience: Sometimes wake up practically feeling like an atheist. I am so engaged with my material world that God seems very far away and an unattainable reality. Then I realize that the devil has been standing by my bed, stirring up my carnal mind to think that. I realize that the battle is on, and I make extra time and effort to set my mind back on the things of God. The result: renewed “joy and peace in believing” (Romans 15:13).
Dear friend, don’t give up and don’t give in. The battle to turn our minds from “seeing is believing” to “believing is seeing” is worth it. It leads to an indestructible peace and joy you can’t find in our material world. And if you do lose the battle some mornings, don’t despair. Tomorrow is another day to start afresh with the Holy Spirit on your side!