Faith is not blind

Faith can come from knowledge, understanding, and experience.  For example, you have faith that flipping a light switch will turn on lights.

In the things of God, simple faith (willingness to try) is the beginning.  Faith is later confirmed through experience, understanding, and knowledge.

Often a need, for which there is no solution in the natural, will compel you to look into the faith area.  Once motivated, faith s the first "concrete" step that opens up the things of God to you: whether it's a first step to seek Him or advanced steps to grow in your relationship with Him, mature in your new life with Him, and receive the things He has given you as His child.  Your initial step of faith in Christ may be nothing more than openness to investigate or explore the things of God through Jesus.

In my case, motivated by selfish need, I mentally began to explore the possibility of finding a supernatural or spiritual answer.  I listened to Christian radio, through which the reality and person of Jesus was preached.  As a result I began to think that Jesus was worth a try.  And there were other encouragements, including the conversion of my late wife Maggie a short time before, and her insistence on Jesus.  At some point, though, for me this "theoretical Jesus" had to become real.  Experience had to confirm faith.

As and intellectual, my deep faith was, and is, a process.  In the beginning I combined a smattering of faith (about the size of a proverbial mustard seed) with an inquiry.  I sought to know if God existed.  I encountered Jesus (my spirit to Spirit) in a parking lot in Kona, Hawaii early one morning.  He said to me in a clear voice, "you are saved and I am your friend."  After meeting Him I sought understanding.  It came through experience (relationship) with Him.  Then I sought to understand the things of God and the "why: of those things (knowledge).  In the process, the world and my growing understanding of the spirit dimension began to make sense: the things of God became logical.  This progression - from God seeking, to faith coupled with understanding - created a certainty that the things of God were real, and created a desire for them to become manifest and to get what God had for me.