Knowing and Trusting

You’ve heard the phrase: “…the tip of the iceberg”? A little bit of iceberg is visible, but if there’s a little bit, then you can be pretty sure there’s more that is unseen. Tips of icebergs don’t float around on their own without underlying support. The photo above is revealing. It helps me understand the concept of faith as 10% knowing and 90% trusting. I know a little; I trust a lot. Those percentages work for me like this: History, brief though it is, records the reality of a man named Yeshua and the things he did and said. He walked the earth and talked about an alternative way to live. He told people they could start living that new way immediately, not that they had to be good to get the reward at a later time. Here and now it is ours if we are willing to accept the 90%, to trust. You and I are already where we hope to be, we just can’t see the 90%, so we trust. Someone might say: Well, over time the 90% becomes knowing also. I hope not, because faith is based on Trust. I live with the cloud that defines and obscures at the same time. I know and I trust simultaneously. On those days when I demand to know beyond my capacity to understand, the cloud gets thicker, but when I Trust, when I live with the “maybe” and the “what if…”, that cloud thins out and I catch glimpses of the peak, glimpses that I’ve never seen before. It’s the sharp edge of faith that slices through the obscurity…and that’s Trust.

I love to look at the mountain, even when I can see only the peak rising through the cloud. If I can see the peak, then I Trust that there’s more unseen, more beauty and majesty. And that’s faith. And that’s enough. Food for thought in your journey. Press on.