"I believe," said many a revolutionary in the Western Sixties, "that we can make a better world.  I have faith in our ability to make things better than they are today."
     Though this is a composite quote, it captures, I think, the essence of what people, including me, were thinking at the time.  We believed that we could do better.  Why did we believe this?  We believed it because we had faith in ourselves.  We trusted ourselves to do what we believed we could do.
     Herein lies a crucial difference between belief and faith.  We may believe many things, but we may not necessarily trust them.  We may like to think about them, but we may not think, in our deepest heart, that we can trust them to do what they claim--or we think--they can say or do.
     This is precisely the dilemma that Jesus' disciples faced, as John records it, in the sixth chapter of John's gospel.  As many people, unclear, confused, frightened, or otherwise uncertain about what Jesus was saying, were abandoning him, Jesus turned to his disciples and asked them, "Will you go, too?"
     "To whom would we go, Lord?" Peter replied.  "You have words of eternal life."  In his uniquely succinct way, Peter captured the essence of the issue at hand.  Believing what Jesus said was easy:  even if he did not always seem clear, everyone agreed that he displayed extraordinary insight into God, the world, and how people were to live.  But to trust Jesus, to put one's life and heart into his hands, well, that was a different thing altogether.  It set people under the weight of eternity.
     And that makes all the difference.  We can believe whatever we want, but in the end, do we trust it--do we really trust it--to determine our eternity?