>Know What You Know

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Faith and Unseen Things

At work recently I needed help with a software program. After fumbling with a few possible fixes, I decided to call the office’s expert for help with my problem.

“Let me come and take a look,” he graciously answered. A moment later he stood beside me, peering at the display on my monitor.

“I think I see the trouble,” he said. “Do you mind if I try something?”

“Please do,” I said, yielding my seat at the keyboard.

My coworker looked down at my keyboard, then up at me. “How do you type on this thing? The keys are blank!”

I looked down and saw for the first time that the symbols marking each key were badly worn away.

“I bet you know where the keys are,” I told him. “Just don’t think about it. If you start with your position on the home keys, your fingers will know where to go.”

He raised an eyebrow, then tapped at the ninja-black keys. A smile stole onto his face as he typed.

And in a moment, he’d solved my problem.

I thought about this incident the other day when a friend asked me how I could be so certain of my God. “Have you seen Him?” she asked.

“I see His work all around us,” I answered.

“Have you touched Him?”

“I’ve felt His hand on me,” I said.

“Have you heard Him?”

“Well, yes, I have–in my heart,” I replied.

“What if you’re wrong? What if at the end of your life, there’s just….nothing?”

“I’m not wrong,” I answered, quietly, calmly. I invited her to call on Him. “Just pray,” I suggested. “Pray for a while. See what happens. Invite Him.”

She said nothing in response. But the look on her face told me that she wasn’t planning to pray.

My coworker was happy to tap away at the black keys, trusting that the desired letters and symbols would result, once I pointed out to him that his fingers already knew the keyboard layout. I’m hoping to find a way to encourage my friend to explore what her heart already knows.

¹⁹ They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them. ²⁰ For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
Romans 1:19-20 (NLT)