FAITH OVER KNOWLEGDE

I strolled from one female ward to another, looking for a patient who was kind enough to give me her medical history – a comprehensive picture of what she suffered from to generate a diagnosis. I almost gave up when six patients I almost attended to pulled their cover cloths over their heads in an attempt to avoid me. I entered the last ward and saw a cachectic elderly woman about five beds from the entrance of the ward, smiling nicely at her breakfast. I took advantage of the smile and smiled back at her with a pen in my right hand and a paper in the other hand. She put her bowl of porridge on her cabinet and told me she was done when I urged her to continue with her breakfast reassuring her I had all the time.
For someone who looked so sick and wasted, her smile was so touching you could see through to her soul. I sat beside her bed and gave it a quick scan. “The surroundings of the patient can tell you what was wrong with the patient” – a lecturer of mine would say. A well-kept bed with the cover cloth folded neatly at the foot of the bed and a King James Bible just beside her pillow.
She had noticed there was a bulging mass in her right flank seven months ago which progressively increased her abdomen in girth. Also, she had lost significant weight over the past five months with other symptoms of spontaneous bleeding from her genital tract and pain in her spine. I knew at the back of my mind’s eye, these constellation of symptoms were likely to be caused by a malignancy.
I proceeded to ask her why she had not been to the hospital earlier and she responded she had been in and out of prayer camps thinking she was being attacked spiritually by a family member, however she sought medical help when she realized her symptoms got worse. With the way she was so forthcoming with her history, the expected interview between the woman and I emerged into a dialogue where we talked about God.
I asked her if she knew what was wrong with her and she dished out the diagnosis of a late stage ovarian cancer. “The doctors say I’m going to die” with a smile. Stunned, I probed further to ask why she looked so joyous when she knew she was going to leave this world. She replied “I won’t die yet my grandson, God would heal me and this would be my testimony” I revised my lecture notes and recalled 83 women in 100 were likely to die in the next five years, but this woman’s faith was as enduring as a rock. Stunned, I thanked her and walked to my room.
Faith, a five lettered word comes from a Latin word fidere which means to trust or believe. Faith in the bible is the confidence in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see. This definition is imprinted in the minds of many people but do we really understand what this means?
Love may be the greatest thing in the world, but faith must of necessity be the first. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is living, it moves, operates and progresses. If we are to put an end to our mental and intellectual twist and turns and allow God to have his way in us, we won’t languish the way we do. Faith is that mystical quality only God can produce and give, for we walk by faith and not by sight.
We have become so headstrong with knowledge that we try to explain how the world came into being with science, trying to take the place of our Maker with our small feeble minds. God is far greater than anything we can understand or imagine and His ways are far above our ways.
It takes faith to believe you would wake up unscathed the next day when your neighbour was attacked and killed by a gang of robbers the previous night.
It takes faith to believe you would rise and soar above that malaria that kept you in bed for just a day.
It takes faith to believe the car you are seated in would not skid off the lane and ram into an incoming vehicle just because the driver dozed for five seconds.
It takes faith to believe that the fever you developed some minutes ago was because of the heavy clothing you wore and not leukaemia.
It takes faith to know you have excelled in an examination you sat for some months ago with a pencil when everyone else used a pen.
It takes faith to know you would survive a month on the 100 cedis you earn when the school fees of your eldest son is 500 cedis ‘only’
It takes faith to know your newly wedded wife would give birth to a bouncing baby boy the next 40 weeks when others have been married for 30 years without a child.
The challenge I face everyday is how to build real faith, if there’s any at all? And not to dodder when an ant passes over my feet in the dark. I know there’s more faith needed to endure this life. It is my prayer He showers me with His gift of faith because He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. I have to feed on His word – meditate on it day and night and put it into practice.
Have you learnt the lesson of drawing on Jesus for the needs for your life? Have you realized that your life everyone considers a failure can be boosted by just a grain of faith, that they hide from your radiance? Trust in God today and He would never let you down. That’s a promise! None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have faith!
“Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.” – Max Lucado
Enjoy your day!

Advertisement