Good morning!
Greetings in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrew 11:1)
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for, i.e., future, neither past nor present. If it is about the past, then we don’t need any faith because we already know what really had happened. If it is about present, again, it does not require any faith because it is just in front of us, and we can see and touch. Faith is our confidence about future, which we are hop for. Not just hoping, faith brings us assurance about what we hope for regardless the current circumstance with which we face against any odds. Why? Faith is not of us, but of God. It transcends what we see, touch and know of. It is the very means to connect to God.
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrews 11:3)
How the universe was created is one most puzzling question to us throughout our human history. Our knowledge about the universe has been vastly expanded about last 100 years. Einstein, Hubble, and other greatest minds have been unlocking the mystery of the universe layer by layer. For example, about one hundred years ago, we thought that the whole universe meant our milky way galaxy. Yes, it is huge. It is composed of billions stars. Now, we know more. There are actually hundreds billion galaxies in the universe. The famous Hubble space telescope orbiting around the earth helped us to observe this vast number of galaxies. In other words, there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s 1 billion trillion) stars in the universe! That’s right. The number has 21 zeros. Our sun is a mere one star out of the 1 billion trillion stars.
We also know that this tremendously large number of stars is made out of one event, called “the Big Bang”, which is the birth of our universe. This is one singularity event. Since then, the universe has been expanding in a tremendous speed. As a result, it spans out to the huge space. We observe this immense size of the universe with huge telescopes on top of mountains or instruments in space, such Hubble space telescope, Cosmic Background Explorer satellites, etc. From this observation, we know that right after the Big Bang, the universe was very hot like the surface of the sun, but the rapid expansion cooled down the universe while making the hot temperature photons (i.e., the heated lights) to the very cold background microwave radiation. (We can see a similar effect when the siren of an ambulance passes by. The pitch of the siren suddenly drops as the ambulance is receding from us.) Two scientists in Bell lab received Nobel prizes by discovering this background microwave radiation. Additionally, we finally detected Gravitational Waves in 2015. It took exactly one hundred years. Einstein predicted the gravitational waves in 1915. However, even Einstein, such a brilliant scientist, thought that it would be impossible to measure the waves. Even so, we could manage to measure with the extremely sensitive Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). Our knowledge has been vastly increased especially during the last one hundred human history. Although we have gained the huge amount of knowledge about our universe, one crucial thing is still missing. Nobody can tell why and how the Big Bang was started.
Bible provides the very answer: the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible, but invisible. Amazingly, the current scientific understanding agrees on the latter part. It tells that the universe is made out of one singularity, which is so small that nobody can see or touch it. How small it is? First, the current generation scientists agree that it is immeasurably small. It is so small that any known instruments or any known approaches would allow to measure. Specially speaking, it is about 1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meter. Yes, it has 35 zeors in the denominator. Additionally, the current generation scientists do not sure that it is the beginning because we don’t know what was happened before this state of the universe. We are still pursuing the origin universe, and peeling off the knowledge like an onion layer by layer. I believe this quest will continue. Our science or scientific knowledge will not and cannot answer the very question forever – why and how the universe was created. Only though faith, we can have true understanding.
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
The most crucial function of faith is to please God. God is our True Father, who created the universe . The One who created the universe owns everything that we see and touch. Is there any reason why He wants from us, even a single dime? No, absolutely not. He has no reason to ask anything from us because He owns everything that we see and touch. Instead, He provides to His Children, us.
Let’s think about a scenario. You are a parent of a three-year-old boy. Then what do you really want from the three-year-old boy? Do you really want for him to do your work for you? No. If you are rational, you would not expect anything useful from the three-year-old boy. If the boy really work out your work, such as fixing a dinner or a car, it would be a real miracle. Yes, you don’t expect nor want for him to work for you. What you want is a relationship with your three-year-old son. You will really love to hear his voice calling you “Daddy or Mommy, I love you.” You will really fond of seeing his happy and smiley face. His hug on you with the small arm will make your day bright, and his kiss on your chick will make you feel like flying.
God is our true and ever-loving Father. We are His children. The gap between God and us is even bigger than the gap between you and the three-year-old body. Then what does God, our true Father, really want from us? He loves to hear our voice from our heart. He wants to see for us coming to Him regardless the circumstance and situation that we face with. His arm is always open to us, and He is eagerly waiting for us. When we come to His open arm, He is truly pleased. Then He hugs us in His bosom, and wrap around us with His strong but loving arm. This is our faith. This makes him greatly pleased, and then our joy is also complete in Him.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9-11)