Skip to content ↓

The Essence of Faith

Here is a noteworthy quote from author James Spiegel. It is drawn from his book Gum, Geckos and God.


The other day I was sitting in a faculty meeting, trying not to doze off during some committee reports. As I looked around, I mused over how much each of my colleagues understands about his or her discipline. It occurred to me that if there was a single mind that possessed all of the knowledge in that room, its intelligence would be surpassed in human history. I also considered how easy it would be to trust such a person if he or she were to counsel me on some matter. From there I extrapolated: What if that person had all of the combined knowledge of everyone in Indiana? In the United States? Of the entire world population? Even if God had merely the sum of all human understanding, he should be easy to trust. Yet his wisdom and knowledge infinitely exceed the best human comprehension. Still we struggle to trust him. How twisted is that?

Faith is essentially the practice of trust. And our routine failure to properly trust an infinitely wise God reveals something of our own perversity. We all desire to control our circumstances, and faith is a surrendering of that control. So we naturally tend to rebel against faith. But God graciously counteracts this tendency by nurturing us. Like a good parent, he consistently demonstrates his love. And we, like kids, must trust him on this basis.


  • Cultivating Faith in God’s Garden

    God wants us to experience the teeming abundance of a life devoted to generative gospel community, even if the spiritual greenhouse is flawed and imperfect. #Sponsored

  • Pronouns

    Should We Capitalize Divine Pronouns?

    There are certain emails I receive on a routine basis and an especially common one relates to pronouns. Thankfully it’s not asking me to define my own pronouns as is all the rage today, but rather asking me whether Christians ought to capitalize God’s pronouns. By way of explanation, when some Christians use a pronoun…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 7)

    A La Carte: On Netflix and Narnia / The wonder of an eclipse / Answering kids’ hardest questions / Not-so-great expectations / It’s not wrong to want to be perfect / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Breath

    A Sudden Stopping of the Breath

    I recently encountered a poem I enjoyed and wanted to share with you. LeRoy Tate Newland was an American pastor, a missionary to Korea, and a poet. Among his poems is this brief reflection on the death of a Christian (which, appropriately, is titled “A Christian’s Death”). I hope you enjoy it as much as…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (April 5)

    A La Carte: The Lioness, the Witch and the Wardrobe / Are people basically good? / Who gets to define a healthy baby? / Go, gently / Films that defined Christian politics / Rethinking our mission field / and more.