Believe in the Unseen

Virginia’s question was an honest one: “Is there a Santa Claus?” The editor of the New York Sun during that Christmas season in 1897 was tasked with answering the young girl so influenced by her doubting friends that she had been compelled to put the question to her local newspaper. In his reply, he explained to the young girl that her friends had been affected by skepticism, only believing in what they could see. He went on to explain to Virginia that no one could “conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.”

Little Virginia O’Hanlon is not the only one to question what she could not see, for we do the same quite often.  But our heavenly Father invites us to believe in what we cannot see. Like the wise editor of that long-ago newspaper pointed out, a world without childlike faith would be quite intolerable, without faith in God our lives are simply incomplete:

Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, do you now believe? Blessed [happy, spiritually secure, and favored by God] are they who did not see [Me] and yet believed [in Me].” John 20:29

The sweet story of little Virginia and her quest to find the truth about Santa Claus has a place in history just as a favorite carol or a family tradition, but there is a spiritual element to her story as well; childlike faith is a blessing, believing in the unseen is essential to our joy. May we never lose our sense of wonder towards our God and all He has in store for us that our eyes have yet to behold!