Today's devotional came from a different setup than usual — a different camera, a different spot — and the verse that landed was 2 Corinthians 5:7. It's short. It's simple. But it hit differently this time.
"For we live by faith, not by sight." — 2 Corinthians 5:7
This is Paul, writing his second letter to the church at Corinth. The verse can stand entirely on its own, but there's something remarkable about who's writing it.
The Man Who Never Saw Him
Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament. He endured prison, beatings, shipwrecks, snake bites, and ultimately death — for a man he never actually met in the flesh. He never sat down for a conversation with Jesus. Never watched Him teach in person. Nowhere in the New Testament does Paul reference being in Christ's physical presence, until he's knocked off a horse on the road to Damascus.
And this is the man who writes: we live by faith, not by sight. That statement carries a different weight coming from someone who staked his entire life — and eventually gave it — on something he never got to see with his own eyes.
What It Means to Live by Faith
To live by faith means holding on to hope in our Creator — trusting that what He's planned for us is in His control, and that He has our best interest in mind. Hebrews 11:1 puts it this way: faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
But Scripture also says faith without works is dead. So how do the two fit together? We live by faith first — it doesn't matter what the natural eye reports. Week one at the gym, you don't see results. We wish we did. But we keep showing up, trusting that the work is doing something even when the mirror says otherwise. Start a diet today, and you won't see fifteen pounds gone by tonight. Need a new job? You can't live by sight there either — you trust and pray that God will place you exactly where you need to be, and then you do the work that goes with that trust.
Faith isn't passive. It's paired with action — coaching the team, watering the seed, showing up for the process — while trusting an outcome you can't yet see.
Letting Go and Actually Leaving It
One of the hardest parts of walking in faith isn't the initial handoff — it's what happens thirty seconds later. Praying "God, I can't handle this, it's Yours" is the easy part. The harder part is not immediately reaching back down to pick it back up, convinced we can manage it better than the One who made the universe.
That's the real fight — laying something at the foot of the cross and actually leaving it there. Not because the outcome is guaranteed to look the way we want, but because He is far more capable of handling it than we are. And even when we don't get exactly what we prayed for, more often than not, what follows is a bigger, better promise than the one we were even asking for — the reward of living by faith and not by sight.
God is a crockpot God, not a microwave God. He develops things over time — not on the push of a button.
Faith fights against fear — fear that God won't do what we've asked, fear that things won't work out in our favor. But we haven't been given a spirit of fear. We've been given one of love. So we keep walking by faith, trusting the process, even in the parts of the field still buried in the dirt.
You can catch this devotional and every weekday message live on carltondewaynedunko.com, Monday through Thursday at 9:15 AM Eastern. Carlton also co-hosts the original 9:15 Devotional, where you'll find the full video archive and more ways to connect.