Pictures of Faith

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” — 2 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)

Because faith is simple but hard to explain, Spurgeon gives a whole run of pictures. Faith is like the eye: with one glance you can take in the sun and the far-off stars, and in the same way trust brings Jesus near, though he is in heaven. Faith is like the hand: it takes hold and says, “This is mine.” You won’t be stealing; you have permission — “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” And faith is like the mouth: food only does you good once you take it in, and a hungry person doesn’t need lessons in eating.

Then everyday life. A farmer buries seed and expects a harvest. A businessman hands his money to a bank and sleeps better than if it were locked in his own safe. A goldsmith puts precious metal into a fire that looks as if it will destroy it, and gets it back purer. You can’t turn anywhere, Spurgeon says, without seeing people trust. A swimmer has to lift his feet off the bottom and let the water hold him; he can’t swim otherwise. And then the limpet — a little shellfish stuck on a rock by the sea. Tap the first one sharply and you can knock it off. But the next one has heard the blow, and now it clings with everything it has; you’ll break the rock before you move it. It knows nothing about geology. It just clings. “It is the limpet’s life to cling to the rock, and it is the sinner’s life to cling to Jesus.” Thousands of Christians, he says, have no more faith than that — and it is enough.

Faith can grow into something more. A blind man takes the arm of a friend who can see, because he knows his friend has what he lacks. A student believes his teacher about countries he has never visited. Deeper still is faith that grows from love: Spurgeon pictures the wife of a brilliant doctor who falls dangerously ill but stays calm, because her husband has healed thousands with her disease and she knows he loves her. And faith obeys — a ship’s captain who trusts the pilot steers where the pilot says. “Faith which refuses to obey the commands of the Saviour is a mere pretence.”

Last, mature faith. One old Christian wrote “T” and “P” in the margin of her Bible beside every promise she had tried and proved. And Spurgeon marvels at a ship’s captain who sails for weeks without seeing land, steering by compass and stars, and arrives exactly at the harbour. That, he says, is what it is to say goodbye to the shores of “sight and feeling” and steer by God’s word.

Now — what is this actually about? Real faith can be small and simple and still hold on to Jesus. You might think you need to understand everything, answer every objection, or feel deeply before your faith counts. The limpet understands nothing and clings, and it is safe. Faith grows — from clinging, to trusting a guide, to love, to the kind that has tested God’s promises for years — but it starts small, and small is real.

Notice, though, that every picture has something in common: the person stops relying on themselves. The swimmer lifts his feet. The blind man takes an arm. The patient follows the doctor. Faith isn’t only an opinion in your head; it shows up in what you lean on and whose directions you follow. You already trust all day long — the bus driver, the doctor, the friend who says they’ll be there. The question isn’t whether you can trust. It’s whether you will trust Jesus the way you trust them.

One thing to do this week: start your own “T and P.” Pick one promise — for example, Jesus’ words in John 6:37, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out” — and write it somewhere you’ll see it. Act on it this week. Then, when you’ve seen it hold, write the letters next to it. That’s how faith that clings becomes faith that knows.