Faith is nearly a word of habit. Tossed here and bantered there; often a discussion can easily shift to the fundamental concept of believing. Certainly faith is designed for the human culture. And just as certainly it carries within enormous challenges to actually walk by it.
Faith believes. It believes what isn't yet can become. It promotes hope when reasonable calculation would declare doubt. Faith sees from the eyes of one's heart; not one's head. Therefore, you can see why this factor is not a shrug-of-the-shoulders unthoughtful whim. This spiritual characteristic is most challenging for the outer man will too often opt to operate from fear of the unknown while the inner person delights in confidence of what can be.
I know of no other force as magnificent as faith. One of faith can focus upon information which declares there is absolutely no hope and still disregard such. Faith sees where eyes can't. The Bible is stunning when it insists that we are to walk by faith and not by sight.
Why is that? What's wrong with sight? When we measure by the visible we are calculating via the flesh rather than the spirit. The story of the Bible is one of moment after moment what couldn't possibly happen...did. The parting of the Red Sea, the feeding of the 5000, the resurrection from the dead and a ton of other historical matters happened...when they just couldn't have done so.
And this is the system--this Kingdom action--from which we are to serve. Words may discourage. Reports might deflate. Actions may disturb. Yet in the Kingdom, nothing reverses threats like believing full-force into the possibility-realm. God does what can't be done through ordinary believers who can't do it.
This. Is. Our. Story.
I see the church as rolling with the tide; the church tide. If things go well; they go well. If things don't work; look for what will. However, I am challenged personally to read God more than I read the tea leaves of circumstance. Are matters challenging? Seriously so. Can God reverse decline, raise nothing to become something, or empower the weakest? Yes...at any given moment.
Faith is a strange and absurd dynamic because it can be possessed and dispensed by humans who, if not careful, tend to worry more about who does and doesn't like them than ambitiously striving to reverse negative trends that would bless entire communities. Faith isn't a catalog of dos and don'ts. It isn't a rule book. Rather it is a transformative way of life that blows the cover of the fear-lords.
No comments:
Post a Comment