Leaps

Some things are too good to be true and others just seem that way.  Knowing how to tell the difference determines if one looses everything or all things.
 
Over the past twenty years several people close to me have come with a shared question.  Is this investment legitimate?  In the hours, days, weeks, and at times, months that followed I produced analysis, articles, and expert advice that said “NO”.  My response was nothing short of emphatic, personal, and in your face.  There could be no question in anyone’s mind as to what I was trying to say.  My body language, the tremor in my voice, and my intensity all reinforced the view that I had and still hold. 
 
In not one case did it matter.  I have watched God fearing people give themselves over to the pursuit of what can only be described as greed.  Others invested large chunks of their life savings on the misplaced hope that I just might be wrong.  And then there were those who found themselves in a current that they seemed helpless to help themselves. 
 
There are very few things in life that I have to take on pure faith.  Financial investments are not one of them.  Relationships often are, no matter how strong our experiential evidence is.  Our leap comes because we know the individual and we can accept gifts that seem impossible and improbable to anyone else. 
 
In this context God offers something that couldn’t possibly be true!  Even those who witnessed miracles first hand find themselves not quite believing.  Some in days gone by hung their doubt on nuances.  For example, “because he [Jesus] said, ‘I am the Bread that came down from heaven,’ the Jews started arguing over him:  ‘Isn't this the son of Joseph?  Don't we know his father?  Don't we know his mother?  How can he now say, ‘I came down out of heaven' and expect anyone to believe him?’”  (John 6.41, 42)
 
Belief seemed a stretch too far.  The difference is that I have an experience with God.  You can have the same.