Friday, July 17, 2015

FAITH INTO THE UNKNOWN

Faith is certainly a huge challenge in today's culture; even our church culture.

Man has such an innate drive to manage, to control, to direct.  So even in the realm of the spiritual we are so very likely to take over the steering wheel.  Directions then become tangled as faith can drive spiritual leadership nuts trying to sort through what is of God and what is of us.  Blessings to all who try to undo the tangles.

Why?  Why is faith some sort of complexity?  That it operates in the invisibles is dramatic as well as pertinent.  We want explanation; not mystery.  We want definition; not surprise.  We want security; not flexibility.

God's pattern is that in leading His people there is no pattern.  That IS the pattern and we will do well to 'fess up to it.  We want God to lead.  Yet, we seem to desire to be assertive in seeking clarification from  Him know whether we are to move right or left, up or down.  Thus, we basically try to run the show.

And...it shows.

Faith is hard because it insists that we move into uncharted waters.  We tend to want the waters charted so that we can feel a bit more secure in navigation.  Due to this latter consideration the church has basically reduced faith to be a one-time matter in a handful of salvation steps.  It isn't just that.  It is our call to walk with our never-to-be-put-in-a-box God.

Faith, by biblical definition, is the certainty of hope coupled with a conviction regarding matters not yet seen.  We may do well to separate belief from wish.  We can want many variations of blessings.  Our call, however, is to believe.

Be encouraged.  Focus.  Grow.  Develop a steady increase in moving about day by day with a faith into the unknown toward matters that will surely and positively develop.

Faith: the walk of man with God that no one can ever explain.

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