Monday, August 11, 2014

Faith

Faith. It is such an important part of the pursuit of Christ. In reality, the pursuit of Christ is in itself a “faith-journey.” Funny how something so important and central to following Christ has always been so difficult for me to figure out. It isn’t that I haven’t heard definitions or explanations. I have just struggled to fit faith into my daily routine.

When I first heard about faith, it was defined in terms which made it nothing more than a belief that God existed. To have faith was to know that God was real and that he loved me. I was comforted to know God was present and loving and I went for some time thinking I was faithful, until I was told that this wasn’t faith. Real faith meant giving my life to this present, loving God.  Somehow he wanted me to trust him, to orient my life around him, choosing to live on his terms rather than my own. So, I trusted him. At 11 years old I said, “Jesus I trust you.” Somehow I expected this simple prayer was going to initiate a life of complete trust in God, but it didn’t. Sure, I trusted him for the big stuff, namely making sure I got into Heaven when I died, but I didn’t trust him for anything else. I didn’t really know how (or desire much of the time) to orient my life around God and do things his way. So, I prayed and said, “I trust you with all the little things in my life,” only I didn’t. I wanted to (sometimes), but I didn’t. Trusting Jesus with all the small stuff was hard. Heaven? That was easy. Friends. Family. Finances. That was just the beginning of the hard stuff.

Over the years I would periodically “check in” with Jesus, letting him know that I wanted to trust him, even though I didn’t. Somehow I felt that these intermittent chats would, at best, express an acceptable desire to have faith. Sometimes we would chat weekly, sometimes monthly. A few times, I am pretty sure we endured a stretch of a year or longer. Finally, I had to be honest that I wasn’t really trusting Jesus, at least not with the little stuff. So, I did some poking around and was surprised to hear that what I was missing was something called “blind faith.” I wasn’t exactly sure what “blind faith” was but it sounded deficient in some way. It was, after all, blind. But, people assured me, blind faith was the way to go. I just needed to “let go and let God.” When I said I didn’t get it, people just said, “Just do it, Blake!” Not quite sure what I was supposed to do, but convinced that “doing it” was the solution to faith, I went out and just did it and ended up creating a few big messes along the way. Clearly I was doing it wrong, but I wasn’t sure just how I was supposed to do it right.

Finally, I came to the point where I had to admit I just wasn’t very good at this faith thing. I wanted to trust, but I found it difficult. I tried to trust, but often I failed. I offered my life, but then I would take it back. I was a complete and total failure at this faith thing, or so I believed, until someone pointed out that my struggle was actually pretty consistent with some other folks, folks whom were identified as people of great faith. I stepped out to depend on God, but then I would draw back and depend on myself. So did Abram (Genesis 12). I served Jesus in a purity of motive and conscience and then turned to selfishness and self-centeredness. So did Gideon (Judges 8.22-27). I pursued the things of God and then in the next breath pursued the things of pleasure. So did Samson (Judges 16). My faith came in fits and starts, in new beginnings and unpleasant endings. It was incomplete and met with doubt, and for a long time I thought I was doing it wrong. Come to find out, I was in some pretty good company, a company of people who were doing it right.

Somewhere along the way, I began to realize that the only thing I was doing wrong was in trying to do it all at once. Faith wasn’t a once-for-all thing I could do. It simply was not possible to “just have faith” and be done with it. Rather, for me, faith was made up of a series of small decisions, daily decisions to say “yes” to Jesus. Faith was saying “yes” to being kind before I had my coffee, and then saying “yes” to saying I was sorry for being rude before my coffee. Faith was saying “yes” to not screaming at the driver who cut me off and then saying “yes” once more to praying for him rather than glaring as I approached him at the red-light. Faith is saying “Yes” over and over again, even after I have said “no.” My faith grows in the thousands of tiny “yeses” I am willing to utter rather than in one big “yes.” It is in these thousands of tiny surrenders to Jesus that I am discovering faith to be something real, something present, and something sustaining. I am beginning to think that maybe, just maybe I can get to be good at this faith thing, so long as I take it one “yes” at a time.

A fellow traveler,
Blake
What’s my next step?
 
We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.
Obey and Pray: The journey of faith is a journey made of thousands of daily surrenderings to God’s will. This week consider one area in which you might say “yes” to God’s call upon your life. This might be in the way you relate to a co-worker or a family member, the way you handle your finances, or even the putting off and picking up of new habits. Begin your journey by saying “Yes” to God’s call. When the next opportunity arises, strive to say “yes” once more. If you stumble into self-centeredness, simply express sorrow and ask for God’s forgiveness and grace to say “yes” to him in the next opportunity. Do not remain in the failure but surrender to God’s loving presence and power to move forward. This is in itself a form of saying “yes” to God. If you doubt the sanity of following God’s calling or are troubled by an unforeseen outcome, tell him about it and once more, ask for the grace to say “yes” to his invitation.

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