Faith--Where Understanding Falters

Frequently we speak of things we don’t understand—and they are infinite and endless: for life is a process of searching, with a little finding here and there and with much need of faith to carry us over what we haven’t yet found.

Men have made many things. We have made machines that can do what men can’t do. We have discovered some of the laws of the universe, and have observed some of the processes of nature. We have learned to conquer some diseases, to lengthen life; to endure and to survive sorrow and separation (but not to eliminate them from our lives).

We recall the questioning of one who had suffered a sudden and severe loss, who uttered over and over: “I cannot understand it,” and then pleaded, “Oh, if I could only understand it.” But if we had to eliminate much, including life itself. Sometimes it seems we don’t understand even ourselves.

And as much as we may have discovered and much as we have made, there is so much more we haven’t discovered and much as we have made, there is so much more we haven’t discovered and so much more we haven’t made. We haven’t made a blade of grass as yet, nor a single cell that can grow and reproduce itself—not even the simplest cell, not even the simplest seed.

Of course there is much we cannot understand. There is much that our children cannot understand concerning us and the purposes we urge upon them. The medicines that parents must at times administer are not understood by the child. But he takes them because he trusts the purpose of his parent.

Likewise there is much that we must accept with faith in an Eternal Father. We have to rely on Him for so many things; we have to trust Him for so much: for food, for water, for water, for air, for seasons; for the inner intricacies of our own physical functioning; and even for life—and it is but a small thing further to have faith where our understanding stops.