We live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7 (NIV)

Natalie McCarthy sprints both the one and two hundred metre races for her Steilacoom High School track team. With shoulder-length brown hair, she looks like most runners her own age, thin, focussed, intent on the race ahead. She is also blind.

So how does Natalie do it? How does she run for a finish line she cannot see? By listening to a radio. With an earpiece in one ear connected to a tiny transmitter in a fanny pack, she listens to the course corrections her father, Matt McCarthy, gives from the sidelines. Natalie runs with nothing more than trust and her father’s verbal directions. She sprints at full speed toward a goal she cannot see, with competitors she can only hear, over obstacles she can only imagine. [Source: Bette Nordberg. A Guidebook for New Believers]

This is an excellent picture of our race with Christ. We run by faith not by sight. We run for a finish line we cannot see, with challenges ahead we know nothing about, guided by the Holy Spirit whispering in our spiritual ears. We must trust in God as blindly as Natalie trusts in her dad. We must place ourselves completely in the hands of our heavenly Father. When He gives course directions, we must listen and respond. While we don’t hear Him through a radio transmitter, we must obey the Word and listen to His still small voice (cf. 1 Kings 19:12).

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” Hebrews 11:1. Everything we do and say must be done and said by faith. It is only when we’re “running blind” that we will be able to cross the finish line. We must never ever think we can go it alone. We must never ever think we can walk by sight. Sight is not faith. Believing when we don’t see is faith. Therefore we must believe before we see if we would honour God by our faith. And how do we do that? How do we live by faith and not by sight? By listening to the Word and obeying the Word. “Lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” Proverbs 2:5-6. He must direct all our decisions. His Word must be a lamp to our feet and a light for our path (cf. Psalm 119:105).

By faith . . . To finish the race we must keep the faith (cf. 2 Timothy 4:7). We must “live by faith, not by sight “ 2 Corinthians 5:7. For “running blind” is the only way to run.