Meeting Standards

All of us are on a journey of discovering our faith. We are constantly searching, collecting evidence, and drawing conclusions — it’s a lifelong process. 

And, we are all at different stages. Evidence that convinces us won’t necessarily convince a neighbor down the street. 

The goal of this journey isn’t to convince the world of the truth in Jesus Christ, though. We are first trying to convince ourselves to ultimately change the way we live. Only then can the light of faith and truth shine for others to see. 

During that first step of drawing conclusions for ourselves, the question is: what’s our standard of proof?

The U.S. legal system has two standards of proof — the preponderance of the evidence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. For the former, that means there’s greater than a 50% likelihood someone’s guilty. In the latter, the likelihood of guilt is closer to 100%.

Sometimes with faith, we take the 100% approach. We feel that we must be 100% convinced before we change the way we live. However, even at 5%, we’re recognizing that something is there.  

We need to take a hard look at what we believe and what we hold to be true. Even if it’s only a sliver of evidence, we must cling to it. It probably means we are onto something...