“The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see.” Hebrews 11:1 (MSG)

I love avocados! Even when I was young, I loved avocados.

One day I decided to plant the pit of one of my avocados. I was surprised at how huge it was. All I needed was a large pot with soil, and every day I would water the pot filled with soil. At one time my mom wondered what I was doing: “Why are you watering dirt?” She asked. I can imagine how silly I looked when I poured water into an empty pot. However, in this dirt was a huge avocado pit. This is what motivated me to water this pot.

For days I saw no results. Still I knew without doubt, even though I had never planted an avocado pit before, that this pit would eventually sprout, as long as I watered it regularly and offered it a lot of light. This is faith! Once this miracle happened, I was excited and it motivated me to plant different seeds as an experience. It was fun. Even the tiniest seeds would sprout. Wow!

Some say that faith is worthless and has no place in life. I guess these people have never planted seeds. A tiny grain buried in soil sprouts and grows into a huge plant. Isn’t this the miracle of life? And the more we experience our Heavenly Father, the more our faith grows. As we trust Him, we too can see our seeds of the unseen sprout up and fulfill their promise. Faith is staring with wide-open eyes that are focused on our Heavenly Father, knowing that He will never ever disappoint us.

“God’s kingdom is like a pine nut that a farmer plants. It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a huge pine tree, and eagles build nests in it.” Matthew 13:31-32 (MSG)

By faith we learn to trust our Father. The more we depend on Him, the more we experience Him, day in and day out. It keeps on growing!

While we were in las Medulas in Spain (Ancient Romans used these mountains to flush out gold, and they were, apparently, quite successful), we had a choice to make. Either take one of the two long ways (2.5 km or 3 km), or the .5 km way. We thought the indicator for the short way pointed up the mountain, and we took off in that direction, making our way up a steep, slippery trail. We were wrong. The indicator didn’t point that way at all, and when we saw we were going nowhere, my wife, who is a mountain goat, decided to explore a bit further.

I was close to the top of one of the Medulas and sat down on the pebbled path. Because I’m not a mountain goat, I began to wonder how we would ever get down that mountain. It’s then that I felt deep peace from my Heavenly Father filling me. He told me all would be okay and that my wife would be my guide to safer ground. Five minutes later, she returned, and indeed, she brought me back to terra ferma. As we started down, I was amazed at how steep our path really was; but I wasn’t concerned. My Father was in charge!

This was my favorite moment at the Medulas. My Father’s presence near the top of the mountain was the highlight of my day.

Rob Chaffart

(To access the entire “Why I am a Christian” devotional series, please click here.)