What Kind Of Faith Must We Have?

The story is told of a man who was one day taking a walk on a cliff overlooking a beautiful hillside. As he looked at the beautiful view of the landscape, he leaned even farther over the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately, he slipped, falling nearly five hundred feet before finally grabbing hold of a tree root.

Looking down from his perilous location, he saw that he was still approximately two thousand feet up from ground level. After contemplating his situation for a few moments of time, he decided to yell up to the top of the cliff.

“Is anyone up there?” A voice immediately answered and said, “Yes.” Then the man yelled, “Well, who is it?” The voice answered, “God.” The man responded with, “Is it really you, God?” The voice replied, “Yes, it is really God.” The man hollered, “Boy, am I glad it’s You! I’m in a mess!”

God said, “Do you believe and trust Me?” The man replied, “I do, I do!” What do you want me to do, Lord?”

And God said, “Turn loose.”

After a few moments of silence, the man cried, “Is there anyone else up there?”

Dear reader, the above story illustrates the kind of faith we must have in order to be pleasing to God — not the doubting kind (James 1:5-8), but the trusting, obedient kind of faith (Proverbs 3:5-6; Hebrews 5:8-9; 1 Peter 1:22; cf. Hebrews 11:8).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets