There’s a story about a certain Native American tribe that had a peculiar rite-of-passage for their young warriors. At a certain age, the father would blindfold the boy, take him out into the forest, and leave him all night. The blindfold stayed the entire time, while the son sat on a stump until morning.
It wouldn’t be long until other noises would fill the space. Animals moving, limbs cracking, leaves shuffling—all types of sounds would begin to terrify the boy who had no idea of was actually causing the movement. With limited information, his mind was left to wander as to what kind of danger could be lurking nearby
In reality, there was no danger. Unbeknownst to him, when he removed the blindfold, what he saw was his father who had stayed by his side all night with a weapon in hand, ready to defend the boy from anything that appeared that night in the forest.
Is that story true? Probably not. And if it was, it might’ve been something one family did that was passed down. Or maybe it was made up all together. It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is the principle behind it. Like the boy, we often are left to interpret all the “noises” that we hear in our life. Some of them may be threats, some of them may be predators lurking in the night, but a lot of them sound dangerous. Like the boy, we feel scared because we feel like we’re left defenseless.
Except we’re not really defenseless, are we? What we don’t know (or more accurately, what we don’t remember) is that our Father stands by to protect us as well. Maybe not physically—life happens, after all—but certainly spiritually. We don’t have any reason to fear for our souls because the salvation from the Lord frees us from a fear of death (Hebrews 2:14).
The Israelites had a very powerful image of the presence of God, though. Exodus 13:22 tells us that God’s presence was depicted by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. According to Nehemiah 9:19, that presence did not leave the Israelites the entire time they were in the wilderness.
Sometimes, I wish I could see what they saw. When times get hairy, I wish I could walk out my front door, look up in the sky, and see a pillar of fire to let me know that God is still there. Life would probably be easier.
But that’s what faith is, isn’t it? It’s not seeing God as much as it is trusting Him. Believing that He’s there even when we can’t see Him. Jesus promised His disciples as much in Matthew 28:20: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
I wish I could see Jesus every day, but my faith is made stronger by the fact that I’m forced to trust Him. Instead of walking by sight, I’m walking by faith, and faith is what I need more than anything to take me home.
