“Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’ ” (John 20:29).
In the 1950s, so the story goes, a high-rise office building in Manhattan was losing tenants. They complained about excessively long waits for the elevator in the morning when people arrived for work, when they took their lunch break, and in the evening when they went home. Engineers studied the building and decided nothing could be done.
The building manager was desperate not to lose any more tenants, so he asked his staff for suggestions. One employee said that people were probably just bored and recommended installing large mirrors near the elevators so that people could look at themselves while waiting. After this was done, complaints dropped to zero.
Thomas was an impatient disciple of Jesus who didn’t like to wait. He refused to believe that the Lord had risen from the dead, and said, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).
The unbelieving follower of Christ set up his own criteria for deciding whether Jesus was truly alive or not. Though his fellow disciples had seen the risen Saviour and told him about it, Thomas clung to his doubts. He loved Jesus but stuck with his own methods of determining truth. Jesus eventually revealed Himself to this hesitant follower, but he forever became known as Doubting Thomas.
To be fair, Thomas did believe. But the kind rebuke of Christ in John 20:29 tells us that the strongest faith is not born out of the impatient idea that “seeing is believing,” but rather, it comes from a complete trust in the words of Jesus.
Are you ready to step onto the elevator of faith and rise higher?
O Jesus, You are so patient and kind when I struggle to believe. Thank You for revealing Yourself to me.
For Further Study: John 20:24–29; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Hebrews 11:1