To exercise faith is to make a commitment based on understanding and experience. During the Second World War many Londoners took refuge in the underground railway system whenever they heard the wail of the air raid sirens. This wasn’t a comfortable choice to make, but the people knew that the stations deep below the city streets were safe places to be, no matter what horrendous damage the bombing raid was inflicting up above on the surface. The people knew from experience that when the sirens sounded, there was a raid coming, and they fled to safety – they exercised faith. When the siren made a different noise, sounding the ‘all clear’, the people knew that it was now safe to leave the security of the underground network and return to their homes, places of work, schools, etc. In doing so they may well have witnessed something of the damage that the bombs had inflicted, reaffirming to them the rightness of their earlier decision to seek shelter in response to the siren’s wail.

The exercise of Christian faith is not unlike the faith of those Londoners; it is a commitment based on understanding and experience. Our friend Clare became a Christian after completing her degree course. Her experience while at university had been peculiar; she was doggedly atheistic, but found herself in the company of Christians at every turn – Christians who told her about God’s love, tried to encourage her to consider the claims of Christianity, and prayed unceasingly that she too would become a Christian. Clare was determined that this wasn’t for her, and resisted vigorously, even starting up a ‘Heathen Union’ in an attempt to counteract the university Christian Union. It wasn’t until after her time at university that Clare came to be so in awe of how intricately and beautifully formed the human body is, that she realised that the only sustainable explanation for this was God. Clare was confronted by the work of God’s hand; she recognised him in his creation. Before making a decision to commit our lives to God, we need to have a sound basis for exercising faith; it is a big commitment that requires a solid foundation. Clare knew the facts of Christianity from her university days, but for these to become real for her she needed to be convinced.

Clare’s story is not unlike that of the apostle Paul who we read about in the New Testament. Paul was stridently anti-Christian and was determined to snuff out this new, fledgling faith; he colluded with the Jewish religious authorities who licensed him to persecute and imprison Christians. Paul’s change of heart was brought about by a dramatic encounter when travelling to the city of Damascus to continue his persecution there – his ‘Damascus Road’ experience. During this encounter he heard Jesus speaking to him directly, and he realised that Jesus was indeed the son of God, and the Christian message was actually true.

Like the Londoners acting to take shelter during the war, people become Christians when they act upon their convictions, take God at his word and accept the forgiveness that he offers and the new life that he promises to those who will follow and obey him. They may be convinced by any number of things: the wonders of God’s creation, the truth of the Bible message, or some direct experience of God – or a combination of these. But this isn’t the whole picture. Once acted upon, understanding becomes supported by experience. For the Londoners it was the experience of being kept safe, and indeed feeling safe, and the experience of what they had been saved from once they returned to the surface and saw the destruction. For the Christian there are different types of experience that reinforce their initial faith.

The message of Christianity is that God will forgive us for everything that we have ever done wrong – if we ask him, based on what Jesus did for us when he gave up his life by dying for us on the cross. Many people, who take this step of coming to God and seeking forgiveness, actually experience the weight of their sin, guilt and shame, being lifted and removed. They know that God has forgiven them, that what was promised has really happened. This is both an initial experience and an ongoing one. When we take the step of becoming a Christian it is only the start of a journey; we are still flawed human beings, will still do things that are not pleasing to God, and will need to ask to be forgiven regularly.

God wants people to come into a relationship with him by believing, exercising faith and receiving forgiveness, but that is only a part of it. God also calls us to commit our lives to honouring him, and as part of this, to serving him. Given such a commitment, we then need to know what he wants us to do; this is where direction and guidance comes in. Christians experience God’s ongoing direction in their lives. This may come about in many different ways, all of which amount to the same thing – being convinced that God has shown them something that they need to act upon. Like the Londoners surfacing after an air raid who could see tangible evidence for the rightness of their decision to seek shelter, Christians look back on key moments in their lives when they knew that God was directing them – spiritual milestones.

An amazing privilege that Christians have is the ability to ask God to act, the freedom to approach him through prayer and to make requests. This isn’t just some sort of spiritual exercise; it is real and evidenced by these prayers being answered and his response seen.

So when we ask how Christians can be so confident in their faith, the answer comes down to understanding, conviction and experience. Understanding the truth, being convinced of it, and experiencing the outcome when faith is exercised. Christians can look back to the day when they first experienced God’s forgiveness and came into a relationship with him. They can look back to other milestones in their journey with God when he has clearly directed them or has intervened in their lives in some very obvious way. Christians can look back to times when they have called out to God in prayer and they have seen his intervention in the circumstance that they brought to him. They can look back to knowing God walking with them through the difficulties and challenges of life.

When Christians experience the reality of God in their lives, they have every reason to have confidence in his ongoing faithfulness as they face the future. This not only applies to the days and years ahead, but also to what the Bible has to tell us about death and the life beyond the grave as well.