Where faith begins

The following words resonate with me as I read this passage.

Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below.  There is no other. (Deuteronomy 4:39)

This is where faith begins. 

It’s not where faith ends, but it’s where it begins:  with acknowledging that God exists.

In Hebrews 11:6, it says,

Anyone who comes to [God] must believe that he exists.

That’s a starting point, but to just believe God exists isn’t enough.  We also need to believe that there is no other.

We can’t believe that Buddha is God.  We can’t believe that Allah is just another name for God.  We need to accept God for who he reveals himself to be.

Perhaps you’ve heard the old story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant. 

One person touched the trunk, and said, “Oh, an elephant is like a snake.” 

Another touched its legs and said “It’s like a tree trunk.” 

Each person touched a different part of the elephant and came away with different impressions of what an elephant was. 

The moral of the story is that they were all right, and all wrong.  They all had bits of the truth, but not the whole. 

And so, the story goes, religion is the same way. Each religion has a piece of the truth of who God is.  Each thinks of God differently, but all of them are right in some aspects, and wrong in others.  Yet they are all talking about the same God.

But there’s a problem with this little parable. 

The problem is the blind men were all partly right and all partly wrong for one important reason:  the elephant couldn’t speak. 

The elephant couldn’t tell the men, “No, no, no.  You’ve got it wrong.  This is what I’m like. “

And that is exactly what God did with the Israelites.  He didn’t leave them to blindly figure out who he was.  He revealed himself to them.

He said,

Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other.

Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?

Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?

Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other.

From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you.

On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.

Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. (Deuteronomy 4:32-38)

And because God revealed himself, there was no excuse for  the Israelites. 

He had made clear to them who he was.  And so he said, “Now acknowledge that I exist and that there is no other.”

God says the same to us. 

He says, “There is no excuse for not believing in me.  There’s no excuse for having a wrong image of me.  I have revealed myself to you through my word.  I’ve told you what I’m like.”

The only question is, “Will we believe him?”