The wise training tool of faith is rarely understood. It helps to realize that the universe was created to train us to be friends of God. People were always asking Jesus what to do, and His response was consistently to have faith.

Faith is something you chose to do—every day

It’s always new every morning. “Give us this day our daily bread” is part of the same Truth. Part of the result of our sin—Adam and Eve’s original sin of mankind—is that we are cut off from being able to see and touch Him. I can’t tell you how often I tell Jesus that I can’t hardly wait until we can walk and talk in the garden again.

Another thing we need to realize is that God knew we would sin. It was part of the plan. Scripture tells us in several places that Jesus was destined for his role before the foundation of the world. Here’s one. As God, Jesus knew about the cross before He created the universe. In the final book of the Meeting Jesus Saga two men are wrestling with teaching about this. It’s expressed this way, “There was a real problem conceptually in dealing with a person who could only be apprehended by faith. How do you discuss a God who was not visible, yet intensely real? More than that, how is faith understood as a realistic necessity?”  From Meeting & Beyond as chapter forty opens.

The training tool of faith is stunningly wise in its subtlety

Just try to imagine a better training tool for a man or a woman. We are all so deeply involved with the soul and the flesh, that not being able to see and feel God just seems like foolishness before we’re reborn. Even worse is the idea that we can be set free to see the Truth only because Jesus came and died for us on the cross. That’s a horrible tortuous method of execution which leaves the body basically intact. Yet, it enables us [by faith] to access the power and freedom of a son or daughter of God Almighty, Himself.

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6: 28 & 29 RSV

I’m convinced that our position in the new creation is determined by the faith and character we let Him build in us during our life here—in this creation.