I watched the water circle the drain in a clockwise direction and suddenly remembered something my grade school science teacher once told me. “In the Southern Hemisphere,” she said, “the water turns the opposite way.”

She explained something called the Coriolis effect—a force created by the Earth’s rotation that influences storms, wind patterns, ocean currents, and even the movement of airplanes across the globe. At the time, it was simply another classroom fact. Something to memorize for a test. But more than forty years later, while visiting Australia, I finally saw it for myself. The water really did turn the other way.

Counterclockwise.

For a brief moment, I just stood there staring at the drain like a little kid rediscovering wonder. The Earth had always been rotating. The force had always been there. I simply had not personally witnessed it yet.

And strangely enough, it reminded me of faith.

For we walk by faith, not by sight.
2 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)

Much of life is shaped by realities we cannot immediately see. Gravity. Wind. Radiation. Love. Truth. Time. And God. The absence of visibility is not the absence of reality. For most of my life, I understood the Coriolis effect intellectually. I trusted the explanation before I ever experienced it personally. But standing there in Australia, what I had believed for decades suddenly became real in a deeper way.

I think the Christian life often unfolds the same way. There are seasons where Scripture feels theoretical. Where prayer feels unanswered. Where God seems silent. Where His providence is something we affirm more than something we feel. Then one day, often years later, we suddenly recognize His hand had been moving the entire time. A closed door protected us. A hardship redirected us. A delay matured us. A suffering softened us. A prayer was answered differently—and better—than we imagined.

The unseen hand was always there. We just could not fully see the pattern yet. I suspect that is part of why God allows us to live by faith. If we immediately saw every reason, every outcome, every protection, every spiritual reality surrounding us, trust would no longer really be trust. It would simply be observation.

Instead, we live much of life like children in a classroom hearing truths we only partly understand. We memorize verses before we experience them. We quote promises before we fully appreciate their depth. We speak about grace, sovereignty, suffering, forgiveness, and eternity long before life forces us to lean upon them completely.

Then the years pass. And eventually we stand in some unexpected moment—a hospital room, a funeral, a reconciliation, a quiet answered prayer, or even watching water circle a drain halfway around the world—and suddenly realize: It was true all along. Not because we finally proved God. But because we finally saw a little more clearly what had always been there.

Job understood this after suffering. Joseph understood it after betrayal and prison. The disciples understood it after the Resurrection. And many of us only begin to understand it after enough years have passed to look backward and notice that our lives were never as random as they first appeared. The Earth keeps turning whether we feel it or not. And God keeps working whether we perceive Him or not.

Perhaps faith is not the denial of reality, but the humility to recognize that reality is far larger than what we can presently see.

For now we see through a glass, darkly…
1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

One day we will see clearly.

Until then, we walk by faith.

Love and trust in the Lord; seek His will in your life.

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